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Charles Dickens 

At the beginning of his literary career. From the 
portrait by his friend Maclise. Courtesy 
of the National Gallery 














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DICKENS’S 

A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


EDITED BY 

EVELINA OAKLEY WIGGINS 

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, 

E. C. GLASS HIGH SCHOOL, LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA 


With Illustrations by 
NORMAN RICE 



D. C. 

BOSTON 

ATLANTA 


1 . 0 . 


HEATH AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK CHICAGO 

SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS 

LONDON 


▼ ▼▼▼▼▼ 


c ^ . 

-c 1^303 


- 




HEATH’S GOLDEN KEY SERIES 

The following titles, among many others, are available 
or in preparation: 

POETRY 

Arnold’s sohrab and rustltm and other poei 
browning’s shorter poems 
french’s recent poetry 

GUINDON AND O’KEEFE’S JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL POETRY 
HERZBERG’s NARRATIVE POEMS 

(Ballads, The Ancient Mariner, Sohrab and Rustum ) 
milton’s shorter poems 
scott’s lady of the lake 
tennyson’s idylls of the king 


PZ3 

1)56 

Tcu 


FICTION 

COOPER’S LAST OF THE MOHICANS 
ELIOT’S SILAS MARNER 

eliot’s mill on the floss 
hawthorne’s house of the seven gables 

TALES FROM HAWTHORNE 

dickens’s tale of two cities (entire) 

dickens’s tale of two cities (editedfor rapid reading) 

scott’s ivanhoe 

SCOTT S QUENTIN DURWARD 

WILLIAMS AND LIEBER’s PANORAMA OF THE SHORT STORY 

OTHER TITLES 

ADDISON AND STEELE’S SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS 

boswell’s life of Johnson (selections) 
burke’s on conciliation 

PHILLIPS AND GEISLER’s GLIMPSES INTO THE WORLD 
OF SCIENCE 

CHAMBERLAIN’S A MIRROR FOR AMERICANS 

(essays by Lowell and others about ourselves and our neighbors) 
Macaulay’s Johnson 
french’s old testament narratives 
Shakespeare’s julius caesar 
Shakespeare’s midsummer night’s dream 


Copyright, 1930 

By D. C. Heath and Company 


3 b 0 

Printed in the United States of America 


APR 



21597 


EDITOR’S PREFACE 


In his own preface to A Tale of Two Cities Dickens tells us 
that, although he realized that no one could add anything to the 
philosophy of Carlyle’s wonderful book, The French Revolu¬ 
tion, it was his hope to add something to the popular and pic¬ 
turesque means of understanding that terrible time. To his 
friend and biographer, John Forster, he wrote that he wished 
to make a “story of incident, — pounding the characters in its 
own mortar and beating their interest out of them, — a pic¬ 
turesque story rising in every chapter, with characters true to 
nature, but whom the story should express more than they 
should express themselves by dialogue.” 

To accomplish this he has with masterly skill developed a 
group of characters whose destiny, determined by events long 
prior to the Revolution, carries them to Paris just at the mo¬ 
ment the Revolution is approaching its apex in the Reign of 
Terror. The average high school student, however, is so un¬ 
familiar with the local, historical, and social background of 
London and Paris during the late eighteenth century that his 
interest in the narrative is frequently checked because he has 
to stop the story and grope in “NOTES” at the back of the 
book for necessary information concerning some place, person, 
or event. In this edition these necessary details of the setting 
are given in the form of an introductory sketch of the two cities 
and the period, which the student should read before begin¬ 
ning this great historical and dramatic novel. 

The brief sketch of the author of the novel may be read 
and expanded at any time that the pupil becomes interested, 
but the appreciation of A Tale of Two Cities should not be read 
until the novel itself is completed. 

Lesson helps are supplied in the Appendix, but as most of the 
places, customs, and historical events of any real significance are 
covered in the introductory sketch, notes in the ordinary sense 


IV 


EDITORS PREFACE 


have been eliminated. In their place there is a running com¬ 
mentary on each book and chapter with, sometimes, a brief his¬ 
torical note that could not be incorporated in the sketch of the 
period. These are taken from Carlyle whenever possible. This 
is followed by a few provocative questions, not to puzzle or de¬ 
tain the student, but rather to call his attention to certain points 
that should stimulate his interest, particularly in the plot of the 
novel. Many students will appreciate this help; some will not 
need it. 

The review questions on the novel as a whole and most of the 
suggested projects have been tested in the classroom. The first 
unit of work on the novel itself — the setting, plot, and char¬ 
acters— all the pupils should be able to master. The other 
units are suggested to increase the interest of the many types 
that compose every class. Some projects may be put in charge 
of a group of students. All are not meant to be used by any one 
class. 

The supplementary reading list includes fiction as well as bi¬ 
ographical and reference material. It is given in the hope that, 
along with the questions and projects, it may stimulate the 
student to read more about the places, the period, and the author 
of A Tale of Two Cities. 

To Mr. A. Edward Newton I wish to express my appreciation 
of his courtesy in allowing me to use a print of Temple Bar 
from his Amenities of Book Collecting. 


E. 0. W. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface .' . . . iii 

Introduction. 

The Two Cities and the Period ix 

The Author and the Book .... xxii 

BOOK I — Recalled to Life 


CHAPTEB 


I 

The Period 





1 

II 

The Mail . 





4 

III 

The Night Shadows . 





9 

IV 

The Preparation 





. 14 

V 

The Wine Shop . 





. 26 

VI 

The Shoemaker . 





. 37 


BOOK II — The Golden Thread 


I 

Five Years Later 



. 48 

II 

A Sight. 



. 54 

III 

A Disappointment 



. 61 

IV 

Congratulatory 



. 74 

V 

The Jackal .... 



. 81 

VI 

Hundreds of People 



. 87 

VII 

Monseigneur in Town 



. 99 

VIII 

Monseigneur in the Country 



. 107 

IX 

The Gorgon’s Head . 



. 113 

X 

Two Promises .... 



. 124 

XI 

A Companion Picture 



. 132 

XII 

The Fellow of Delicacy 



. 136 

XIII 

The Fellow of No Delicacy . 



. 143 

XIV 

The Honest Tradesman . 



. 147 

XV 

Knitting. 



. 158 


v 






















INTRODUCTION FOR THE 
STUDENT 

The Two Cities and the Period 

Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities carries us back and forth 
from London to Paris and Paris to London; and the local 
and historical background, which we call the “ setting/’ plays 
a vital part in the development of the plot. Therefore the 
novel itself will prove much more interesting if, before begin¬ 
ning to read it, we take the time to learn something of the 
period and to make a personally conducted tour of the inter¬ 
esting places that Dickens will carry us to in the course of the 
story. Visualizing these points of interest as we trace our 
itinerary on the maps facing pages xi and xv and reading this 
introduction about a period in which an elderly gentleman 
called for a sedan chair, instead of a taxi, to take him to his 
place of business, and a young lady, overcome by her emotions, 
fainted and had to be taken home in a hackney coach, will 
save our having to stop later for research; and when we begin 
to read A Tale of Two Cities, we can give ourselves up to the 
full enjoyment of the plot and characters in this most pictur¬ 
esque and dramatic novel of the French Revolution. 

The Two Cities. The two cities chosen by Dickens had 
many features in common. Each, the capital of a great nation, 
had been before the beginning of the Christian era, a small, 
fortified native settlement; London on the banks of the Thames, 
and Paris on a small island in the Seine. Each, in turn, con¬ 
quered by the Romans, had been converted into a Latin camp 
and settlement. Each, through the Middle Ages, as it built 
its palaces and prisons, monasteries and taverns, small churches 


IX 


X 


INTRODUCTION 


and great cathedrals, had grown slowly but surely into a rich 
city of merchants and artisans. Each had fortified walls with 
great gates opening on the outlying fields that were soon to 
become prosperous suburbs where the king and the nobility 
preferred to dwell. Each spread gradually from the north to 
the south bank of its river, and the banks were spanned by 
bridges. Each, during the period of our story, lived through a 
great revolution; but London caught only the echoes of the 
English battles fought across the Atlantic, while Paris was the 
center, the very vortex, of the revolution that transformed 
France from a despotic monarchy into a republic. 

London. When our story opens, the north bank of the 
Thames, connected by three bridges with the rapidly grow¬ 
ing district of Southwark, is thickly settled from the Tower 
of London, at the eastern end of the old Roman wall, to the 
Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey on the west. 
A bit to the north, in St. James’s Palace, are living George III 
and his wife, Sophia Charlotte, whom Dickens calls, in the open¬ 
ing chapter of A Tale of Two Cities , “ a king with a large jaw 
and a cpieen with a plain face.” Passing north from the palace, 
we soon reach the Strand, a broad but poorly paved thorough¬ 
fare. Just a block away from the Thames, it runs parallel with 
the abrupt eastern curve of the river until it reaches the western 
boundary of the old wall, now replaced by houses and shops built 
up against the barrier of Temple Bar, the last one of the city 
gates left standing. 

As we look up at this beautiful stone gateway, built by Sir 
Christopher Wren, the noted architect who so largely planned 
and superintended the rebuilding of London after the great 
fire of 1666, we see a broad central arch for vehicles, flanked by 
two narrower ones for pedestrians. The middle arch is sur¬ 
mounted by a room with a tall window, on each side of which 
are corresponding niches containing royal statues. A few years 
earlier than our story we might have seen staring down upon 
us from upright iron spikes on the arched roof, the heads of 
criminals executed for high treason — a dreadful warning to 



Temple Bar 


Courtesy Edward, A. Newton 




















































































THE TWO CITIES AND THE PERIOD 


XI 


the great stream of Londoners passing back and forth through 
the gate. If the king and queen should happen, at this time, 
to be making a royal entry into the City, as the part of London 
which used to lie between the old walls is still called, we could 
witness an interesting ceremony. The lord mayor and his council, 
in their crimson, ermine-trimmed robes, would be waiting just 
outside Temple Bar to present to their majesties the keys of 
the city and the great jeweled sword that Queen Elizabeth had 
given almost two hundred years before to the lord mayor as a 
symbol of his authority. 

As we pass on through Temple Bar gateway, the Strand sud¬ 
denly narrows and becomes Fleet Street. From Saint Dun- 
stan’s Church on the north corner, we can see, just across the 
street, a bank in reality known as Child’s, but in A Tale of Two 
Cities we shall know it as Tellson’s — a bank that in spite of 
its old-fashioned, dingy appearance was sufficiently substantial 
to have a house in Paris; and according to its confidential clerk, 
Mr. Lorry, it had, for a century and a half, carried on a flour¬ 
ishing business in both cities. 

Beyond Tellson’s, for some distance along Fleet Street, and 
reaching south to the river, lies the Temple, a district famous 
in both history and literature, from which the old gateway 
under which we have just passed derived its name. The quaint, 
shady courts and quadrangles invite us to wander through them 
and admire the fine, stately old buildings, headquarters of the 
Knights Templars of crusading days, but since the fourteenth 
century occupied by law students, lawyers, and barristers. In 
his apartment — or chambers, as he would call it — in one of 
these old halls we shall pay several visits to a prosperous, push¬ 
ing barrister whose aspiration to become chief justice, Dickens 
slyly suggests by placing the initials C. J. before his very appro¬ 
priate surname of Stryver. Perhaps, as we walk through the 
famous old Temple Garden, we may pass him, still in his 
lawyer’s gown, hurrying into the wigmaker’s shop to have his 
own wig powdered for the afternoon session of court. 

To the east of the Temple, between Fleet Street and the 
river, is another old monastic district called Whitefriar’s, where 


Xll 


INTRODUCTION 


we shall find a narrow and picturesque lane, well known in 
the annals of London crime as Hanging Sword Alley. Here 
the odd-job man at Tellson’s has a neatly kept two-room 
apartment where he stores his tackle for mysterious mid¬ 
night fishing trips. One night, in the company of his young 
son and namesake, we shall follow him for two long miles on 
one of these trips to St. Pancras-in-the-Fields and discover 
his secret. 

A little farther down Fleet Street, the headquarters of strug¬ 
gling authors, journalists, and publishers, we are likely to pass, 
loitering at one of the many bookstalls and peering into some 
old volume, the heavy-set and ungainly, but learned and famous, 
Dr. Johnson, author of the first Dictionary of the English 
Language. We may induce him to tell us about “ Scratching 
Fanny,” the much-discussed ghost that he helped investigate 
in Cock Lane, not so far distant. By this hoax, a father and 
his daughter, with so-called spirit rappings on a wall, had fooled 
a large part of the superstitious London public. 

A little farther along, up a small, covered way just before 
Fleet Street changes its name as it begins to climb Ludgate Hill, 
is the old Cheshire Cheese, a small tavern with wooden benches 
and sanded floor, where we shall come for dinner one evening, 
later on, with two of the principal characters of our novel, a dis¬ 
sipated and contradictory young outcast of the law courts, and 
a fine young Frenchman, who have been thrown together by 
a strange chance. As we reach the top of Ludgate Hill, we 
are facing Saint Paul’s Cathedral, that most noble monument to 
Sir Christopher Wren. With its great dome and two graceful 
front towers, it crowns the highest point in London, just as 
-Notre Dame, with its slender spire and two great towers, seems 
to watch over the other city of our story, from the heart of 
Paris. 

The Old Bailey, London’s principal criminal court, where we 
shall attend the trial of one of our characters for treason, is 
only a block north of Ludgate, and just back of the court build¬ 
ing is Newgate Prison on the site of a gateway of that name 
which had once stood in the old Roman wall. In a few years, 
the public hangings, which now take place at the famous Tyburn 


THE TWO CITIES AND THE PERIOD 


Xlll 


Tree at the end of Oxford Road, will be held at Newgate. 
But in 1780, when there were nearly two hundred crimes pun¬ 
ished by death in the English penal code, the condemned crimi¬ 
nal, who might be a brutal murderer, a noted highwayman, 
or a mere petty thief being punished for his first offense, was 
compelled to leave the portals of the jail, carrying the rope 
for his own halter, and accompanied by a jeering, hooting 
mob, drive in a coach, or ride in an open cart, a jolting journey 
of more than two miles to the gallows. 

After it had climbed Holborn Hill and wound its way with 
sober warning through the notorious slums of Saint Giles, this 
procession would pass just north of Soho Square on the north¬ 
western fringe of the city. Always a foreign resident section, 
Soho became, a little before and during the French Revolution, 
the headquarters of the emigres, or aristocrats and noblemen who 
for political reasons were forced to seek a home outside of 
France. On a quiet corner of this square, peculiar for its re¬ 
curring echoes of tramping feet, some of the principal French 
characters in A Tale of Two Cities live for many years. We 
shall often visit them here, and enjoy sharing the somewhat 
even tenor of their lives, broken occasionally by a trip up 
the Thames to the pleasure park at Ranelagh, or to the famous 
Vauxhall Gardens; sometimes to the Tower, and other places 
of interest within the city itself. 

London to Paris. At the time of our story, we can make 
the trip from London to Paris in about three days, if we are 
fortunate in reaching the little seaport of Dover when the wind 
and tide are favorable for a quick Channel crossing on the mail 
packet. We had better try to leave London in the regular stage 
drawn by four strong horses; for it carries the king’s mail and 
has a heavily armed guard to protect it from the highwaymen 
who menace all the travelers from the moment they reach 
Blackheath on the outskirts of the City itself. On our arrival 
at Calais, the French port, we can engage a regular public dili¬ 
gence — a coach, or a chaise, according to our need (p. 25) — and 
our postilions will see to it that our horses, when they become 
tired, are changed at the various posting houses along our route. 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


Paris. Paris, at this time, is still using its gates or barriers, 
and as the city limits have been recently extended, after show¬ 
ing our passports at the barrier, we have to drive through the 
Faubourg Saint Antoine to reach the section of Paris in which 
the scenes of our story are laid. This particular faubourg, 
noted since the fifteenth century for its poverty and crime, is 
one of the best-known slums of Paris. Its population will 
largely recruit the revenge-seeking masses of the Revolution. 
The part played by a brewer of this district, who became a well- 
known military leader during the Reign of Terror, probably 
gave Dickens the idea of making two of his French characters 
the keepers of a wine-shop situated just where this ill-favored 
faubourg overflows into the Rue Saint Antoine, a narrow, 
winding street, within the old city walls. 

On our way to this wine-shop, before the fourteenth of July, 
1789, we would have to pass the Bastille (p. 208), an ancient 
stone fortress and prison with eight great circular towers, a moat, 
and a drawbridge — a prison that symbolized to the poverty- 
stricken people living near it the despotic power that the king, 
the nobility, and the clergy had exercised for centuries. Ter¬ 
rible stories were told of prisoners who had languished for a life¬ 
time in its dungeons after having been suddenly and secretly 
arrested by means of the much feared and hated lettres de cachet 
or sealed warrants for imprisonment without trial, which the 
kings of France and their secretaries of state were in the habit 
of granting to favored courtiers upon request. We shall hear 
much of this prison and one of its prisoners in the course of 
our story. 

When we pass the Bastille and move along over the rough 
cobblestones of the Rue Saint Antoine, once an old Roman road, 
we are on the southern outskirts of a part of old Paris known as 
La Marais, because it was built upon land reclaimed from the 
river marshes. It is a district rich in historical association; 
and here Dickens has laid many of the scenes of his novel, par¬ 
ticularly around La Force (p. 266), another well-known prison. 
Built in the thirteenth century as a palace for the king’s brother, 
it later became the residence of the Dukes of La Force; and 


THE TWO CITIES AND THE PERIOD 


XV 


when Louis XV converted the palace into a prison, it con¬ 
tinued to be known by the name of its former owners. It later 
became one of the principal revolutionary prisons; and during 
the appalling prison massacres that inaugurated the Reign of 
Terror, September 2, 1792, the lovely Princesse de Lamballe, 
the close friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, and one hundred 
and sixty-six other Royalist prisoners were butchered in its 
court. 

Along the Rue Saint Antoine, we notice the street lanterns 
hanging, sometimes from brackets riveted into the walls of a 
shop or dwelling, sometimes from poles set at the street corners 
(p. 266). When these lanterns had to be lighted, they were 
lowered and raised by means of ropes and pulleys; and after 
the fall of the Bastille the maddened people used these ropes 
and their supports for a kind of ready-made gallows. The cry 
“A la lanterne! ” became a terrible and dreaded slogan of the 
early days of the Revolution. 

Just a block beyond the point, where, in its curve toward the 
Seine, the Rue Saint Antoine comes to an end on the river 
front, there stands one of the centers of the old city life, the 
Hotel de Ville (p. 214), or Paris Town Hall. Near the beginning 
of the Revolution we shall visit its great Hall of Examination 
and see the wild masses of Saint Antoine announce their terrible 
will — a united will that we saw them execute just one week 
earlier in taking the Bastille. 

Turning to the south, we cross one of the bridges (p. 362) to 
the lie de la Cite or Island of the City, the real center and the 
real beginning of Paris. We are soon in front of the beautiful 
old Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame (p. 356), already spoken of 
in connection with Saint Paul’s in the other city of our story. In 
A Tale of Two Cities we once catch a glimpse of the towers of 
Notre Dame from an upper window of the Defarge’s wine¬ 
shop ; and at another time, a remarkable English woman, plan¬ 
ning to meet an equally remarkable English man in front of 
this landmark, says “ near the great cathedral door between the 
two towers.” At the lower or western end of the island, is one 
of the oldest buildings in the city, the Conciergerie, a part of the 























































































THE TWO CITIES AND THE PERIOD 


XVII 


Palais de Justice, an extensive group of buildings which in the 
early days of Paris had been a royal palace. The Conciergerie 
was the revolutionary prison to which were carried those prison¬ 
ers who were to face trial for their lives in the court of the 
Palais de Justice; and during the Reign of Terror, such a trial 
almost invariably meant death (p. 336). 

Every afternoon there set out from the great iron gateway 
of this prison a long procession of tumbrils that, crossing the 
river on the Pont du Change, rumbled on through several short 
streets to the broad Rue de Saint Honore, down which they 
jolted on past the Church of Saint Roch, the Louvre, and the 
Palace of the Tuileries, until they turned finally into the open 
Place de la Revolution, in the center of which stood the guil¬ 
lotine. 

But instead of following the route of the tumbrils, we will 
cross over to the southern bank of the Seine where, in the rich 
Faubourg Saint Germain, many of the old French nobility 
had their homes prior to the Revolution. In a wing of one of 
these fine old residences, “ approached by a courtyard and shut 
off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate,” is the 
Paris branch of Tellson’s Bank. In a quiet upstairs lodgings, 
a little distance from the bank, several of the principal char¬ 
acters of our story, both English and French, live for more 
than a year during the terrible days that marked the Reign of 
Terror of the French Revolution; while in the Abbaye Prison, 
just a short distance away, is confined a prisoner, unknown to 
all of them, who is the real cause of their being in France during 
that dreadful time. 

Landmarks of “ A Tale of Two Cities.” It may interest 
the pupils studying A Tale of Two Cities to know that, if they 
should have the good fortune to make a real visit to London 
today, they would find most of the places visited in their 
eighteenth-century imaginary trip still standing. The Strand 
has become one of the busiest and most cosmopolitan thorough^ 
fares in the world, and Fleet Street is still the headquarters of 
journalists and publishers. We can visit again the quaint little 


INTRODUCTION 


xviii 

tavern, the old Cheshire Cheese, which still sands its floor, uses 
its old wooden benches, and serves a dinner of beefsteak and 
pudding; and there on the table at which the two young men 
in A Tale of Two Cities once sat, the present proprietor keeps 
a copy of the novel, open at the chapter that tells of their visit. 
We can still wander through the shady quadrangles of the 
Temple and see other barristers in their long, black gowns, 
buying their wigs at the same little shop where Mr. Stryver once 
had his powdered. 

But to see the old Temple Bar gateway, we should have to 
travel tweVe miles out of London to Waltham Cross in Hert¬ 
fordshire, where we should find it set up at the entrance of 
Theobold Park, the estate of Sir Hedworth Meux; for in the 
interest of traffic, the old barrier was removed in 1877. The 
Temple Bar Memorial, a long, narrow pedestal surmounted by 
a dragon, popularly known as the Griffin, marks the exact loca¬ 
tion of the old gate; and even today, when making a state entry 
into old London, the king and queen wait before this monu¬ 
ment for the lord mayor, attended by his council in their crim¬ 
son robes, to go through the age-old ceremony of presenting 
the keys and the sword of the city. 

In Paris, many of the landmarks are gone. A tall, bronze 
shaft, surmounted by a lion and known as the July Column, 
marks the place where the Bastille stood. Only portions of 
the walls of La Force are left, and these are imbedded within 
the sides of houses built on the site of the old prison, or ad¬ 
joining it. There is a new Hotel de Ville, for the one that we 
visited was destroyed in the Revolution of 1871. We can still 
visit Notre Dame, and the Palais de Justice, and even the 
Conciergerie, and trace the route of the death tumbrils. In 
the old Place de la Revolution, however, which had formerly 
been the Place de Louis XV, we would find the statue of the 
king back upon the same pedestal from which the Revolution¬ 
ists had torn it, and see, on the site of the guillotine, the Obelisk 
of Luxor, a gift from the pasha of Egypt. The square is now 
known as the Place de la Concorde; and when President Wilson 
made his formal entry into Paris to attend the Versailles Peace 


THE TWO CITIES AND THE PERIOD 


XIX 


Conference, he drove through this square, where he saw Ameri¬ 
can doughboys dancing on a great platform erected around the 
obelisk that marks the spot where the guillotine once beheaded 
a French king and his queen. 

The Revolution. In setting the year 1775 for the beginning 
of A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens tells us that at that time “ mere 
messages in the earthly order of events had come to the English 
crown and people from a congress of British subjects in America.” 
Except for this reference and the fact that in the development 
of his plot, he makes the Revolution in America react danger¬ 
ously upon the fortunes of a young Frenchman in the story, 
there is no direct allusion in A Tale of Two Cities to this great 
revolutionary movement in progress in the New World. Yet 
we are conscious that its strange doctrine of all men being cre¬ 
ated free and equal did influence the French people and play 
its part in contributing to the spread of the “ new philosophy ” 
alluded to in the novel — a growing belief in the fundamental 
liberty and brotherhood of man that finally precipitated the great 
revolution which forms the real, dramatic background of our 
novel. 

Dickens, whose imagination had been fired by Carlyle’s great 
book, The French Revolution, paints his own pictures of this 
stupendous event with such vivid and dramatic detail that 
only a brief summary of its causes and outstanding features is 
necessary here. The student who wishes to learn more about 
it will find in the Appendix a list of reference books and a 
notation of chapters from Carlyle that have special interest for 
the readers of A Tale of Two Cities. Some of these chapters 
he may enjoy comparing with Dickens’s description of the same 
events; in others, he will obtain striking pictures of events 
that the novelist is obliged to cover in a few suggestive sen¬ 
tences. 

The real beginnings of the Revolution reached far into the 
past. The movement was like a huge wave that is slowly yet 
cumulatively acquiring the necessary momentum to break. 
The government had long been absolutely in the hands of 


XX 


INTRODUCTION 


the king, nobility, and clergy, who through their ministers 
and agents had extorted from the citizens and peasants heavier 
and heavier taxes until they could bear no more. Dickens, in 
his novel, introduces us to some members of a secret society 
whose followers, known as Jacques, fomented dissatisfaction 
among the oppressed people both in the cities and throughout 
the country districts of France. Even the sympathy of the 
common soldiers in the king’s army was with the oppressed 
people, rather than with the king and their officers. The kindly 
but inefficient Louis XVI and his gracious Austrian queen, 
Marie Antoinette, Dickens’s “ king with a large jaw and queen 
with a fair face,” who, at the beginning of our novel, were 
reigning in the magnificent Palace of Versailles in the suburbs 
of Paris, had inherited a kingdom whose evils they could 
neither understand nor cure. 

The taking of the Bastille, July 14, 1798, by wild masses of 
men and women largely from the Saint Antoine district, is 
commonly considered the real beginning of the Revolution. 
The Parisians were maddened by the king’s dismissal of his 
prime minister, Necker, known as “ the peoples’ friend.” But 
when Necker had been recalled and the king and queen, three 
months later, in response to the demand of a mob of infuriated 
men and women, clamoring for bread, moved the court from 
Versailles to the Tuileries in the city itself, a long interval of 
apparent peace succeeded. 

In June, 1792, however, an unsuccessful attempt of the royal 
family to escape from France made it clear to the outside 
world that the king and queen, though nominally the rulers 
of France, were virtually prisoners in their royal palace. In 
August, after the populace had stormed and taken the Tuileries, 
a provisional government was established and the king and 
queen were made actual prisoners. An attempt to rescue them 
on the part of a Prussian army allied with many of the leading 
Royalist emigres assembled on the eastern frontier gave the 
provisional government an opportunity to declare France in 
peril from an invading army; and on Sunday, September 2, 1792, 
when the rumor grew that the Prussians were actually advancing 


La Carmagnole 


* 


































































































































































Execution of Marie Antoinette 















THE TWO CITIES AND THE PERIOD 


XXI 


on the city, Paris went wild. The black flag of the “ Fatherland 
in Danger ” was hung from the Hotel de Ville and on the towers 
of Notre Dame; the tocsin was sounded, and revolutionary 
tribunals set up in every district in Paris for the immediate 
trial of Royalist sympathizers. That afternoon there was 
started a general massacre of all recently arrested Royalists, 
who crowded the prisons of the city. These massacres, which 
with brief intervals lasted until the following Thursday, in¬ 
cluded, according to Carlyle, not less than a thousand and 
eighty souls and formed a fitting prelude to the Reign of Terror 
that succeeded this so-called “ severe justice of the people.” 

On September 22, France was proclaimed a republic with 
the motto, “ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.” “ Citi¬ 
zen ” and “ citizeness ” became the prescribed mode of salu¬ 
tation. Drunk with their new-found power, miscalled free¬ 
dom, men and women, wearing red liberty caps, madly embraced 
each other and danced the wild revolutionary dance of the 
Carmagnole up and down the streets of the city. 

The following January, the king was tried and condemned. 
He was beheaded the next day by means of a new engine of 
death, named from its worthy inventor, Dr. Guillotin, the guil¬ 
lotine, which Dickens, in the first chapter of his novel, calls 
“ a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, 
terrible in history.” The king was the first victim of the guil¬ 
lotine after it had been set up in the Place de la Revolution. 
Eight months later, while the armies of France prevented the 
armies of united Europe from coming to her rescue, the queen 
was executed on the same spot. And day after day, during 
these eight months the tumbrils delivered their victims, seldom 
fewer than twenty, frequently more than fifty, at the foot of 
this machine that administered a speedy death to all who were 
even suspected of being enemies of the new republic (p. xxix). 

At this time, according to Carlyle, “ On all the housetops 
flicker little tricolor Flags, their flagstaff a pike and a Liberty 
Cap. On all housewalls, for no patriot, not suspect, will be 
behind another, there stand printed these words: Republic, 
one and indivisible, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death.” 


XXII 


INTRODUCTION 


And the women are playing the same eager part that they did 
in the beginning of the Revolution, for Carlyle also tells us that 
even in the National Convention “ there are citoyennes too, 
thick crowded in the galleries there. Citoyennes who bring 
their seam with them or their knitting-needles, and shriek or 
knit as the case needs — famed Tricoteuses, Patriot-Knitters.” 

The period of the Terror lasted nearly two years. Two 
thousand victims 1 — nine hundred of them women — were guil¬ 
lotined in Paris alone, while every town, city, and district of 
France had its own toll of aristocrats and nobles. At Nantes 
fifteen thousand were killed by drowning or shooting. The mad¬ 
ness and horror of the period cannot be exaggerated, and yet 
we must remember that centuries of cruel oppression were being 
avenged. Dickens himself sums up the case when he says, 
“ There is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, 
a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn which will grow to 
maturity under conditions more certain than those that have 
produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, 
under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tor¬ 
tured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and op¬ 
pression ever again, and it will surely yield the same fruit accord¬ 
ing to its kind.” 


The Author 

Almost all of us know of some house that makes a special 
appeal to us, a house that we would like to have for our own 
to live in — and Charles Dickens was not peculiar in this 
respect. When a small boy, driving along a road near Roches¬ 
ter, he noticed and admired a house called Gadshill — a place 
that stood on a high point above the road. His father promised 
him, according to John Forster, Dickens’s friend and biographer, 
that he might himself live in such a house when he came to be 
a man, if he would only work hard enough. What is peculiar 
in his case, however, is that he did later buy that very house 

1 Qarlyle, The French Revolution, Part III, Book VII, Chapter VI, 



THE AUTHOR 


XX111 


and live in it during the last thirteen years of his life; and he 
made it one of the most happy, hospitable, and famous homes 
in all England. 

This fact seems even more remarkable when we consider 
another story about Dickens and his father. The latter being 
asked one day about the education of his gifted son replied, 
“ Why indeed, sir — ha! ha! he may be said to have educated 
himself.” And this is true, for the misfortune and poverty of 
his father and mother kept them from giving their boy more than 
a few years of actual school training. In the true sense of the 
word, Dickens may be said to be self-educated; and all credit 
is due the indomitable ambition and will power that made 
him England’s best-known and best-loved novelist during the 
latter half of the nineteenth century. 

Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812, at Portsea, Eng¬ 
land, the second child and eldest son of John Dickens, a navy 
pay clerk stationed at that place. Soon the family moved to 
Chatham, where, for a while, he attended school. On account 
of financial troubles, his father soon moved his family to a home 
in one of the poorer quarters of London. Here, money diffi¬ 
culties steadily increased, and soon John Dickens was confined 
in the debtors’ prison, the Marshalsea. 

Charles was about nine years old and felt the sufferings of 
this period very keenly, though later in David Copperfield he 
was able to make the world laugh at his pictures of Mr. Mi- 
cawber, for whom his father was the understudy. It was during 
the period of his father’s imprisonment, while the rest of the 
family were living in the prison quarters with him, that Dickens 
was sent to work in a blacking factory owned by a relative. 
He has given us a vivid picture of his mortification and suffer¬ 
ing during those unhappy days in his Life by John Forster, 
and also in David Copperfield, where, as he himself wrote, 
“ I seem to be sending some part of myself into the Shadowy 
World.” 

When he was twelve years old, there was a happy change 
in his father’s affairs, and again for a period of two years he was 
sent to school. He had been a delicate child, but by this time 


XXIV 


INTRODUCTION 


he was a strong, active boy. At fourteen he had finished his 
school life forever and was ready to face the world on his own 
account. 

His first step after leaving school was to become a newspaper 
reporter, a training that was later of much value to him. For a 
brief period he worked in the office of a lawyer, and at that time 
thought of taking up acting, a profession in which he was always 
interested. But fortunately, instead, he drifted into writing. 

His Sketches by Boz in 1835 first called him to the attention 
of the London public, and two years later Pickwick Payers made 
him most happily known throughout England and the English- 
speaking world. Before 1840, in four more novels, Oliver Twist, 
Nicholas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, 
he had contributed to English fiction many characters, whose 
names are familiarly used today. 

He had married Catharine Hogarth, the daughter of a valued 
literary and business friend, just before the publication of 
Pickwick Papers. His family life is very fairly interpreted by 
Forster, delightfully touched upon in his Letters, and charm¬ 
ingly pictured during the Gadshill days by his daughter Mamie 
Dickens in My Father As / Recall Him. 

After a trip to America, on which Mrs. Dickens accompanied 
him, he published his American Notes in 1842. In rapid suc¬ 
cession, and each adding to his popularity, there followed that 
most famous and delightful of all his many well-known Christ¬ 
mas stories, A Christmas Carol; Martin Chuzzlewit, that car¬ 
ried its hero to America; Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, 
Bleak House, Hard Times, and Little Dorrit. All of these were 
notable for the creation of characters that will always live as 
long as English fiction is read. They showed his genius to 
interpret all kinds of people, good and bad, rich and poor, but 
the stories themselves were a loosely strung together series of 
events or episodes, and few of them would have been read merely 
for the story itself. 

A Tale of Two Cities published in 1859 was the first novel in 
which he showed ability to construct a real plot; and in the 
novel that followed it, Great Expectations, he succeeded equally 


THE AUTHOR 


XXV 


well in this respect. Our Mutual Friend, his next work, was 
less successful in many respects. However, Edwin Drood, his 
last work, which he was busy writing when death overtook him, 
promised to be one of the great mystery stories of English 
fiction. 

In addition to producing his novels, Dickens established in 
1850 and conducted for nine years a weekly magazine that pub¬ 
lished serial stories — some of them counted today among his 
best-known novels — and articles of general interest. A Tale 
of Two Cities, published as a serial, inaugurated the appearance 
of All the Year Round the successor to Household Words, in 
1859. It ran from April to October and 35,000 back numbers 
were called for. Dickens was made particularly happy by a 
letter from Carlyle telling of his appreciation of the novelist’s 
interpretation of the Revolution in France. 

It was while he was writing A Tale of Two Cities that Dickens 
gave his first public reading to help raise money for a children’s 
hospital in London. The story was A Christmas Carol; and 
the event proved such a success that the author, who was also 
gifted as an actor, began to interpret his own characters in public 
readings that covered a period of about twelve years and car¬ 
ried him all over England and into Ireland and Scotland. 

It was the great popularity of these readings that was respon¬ 
sible for his second American visit, which is told about so charm¬ 
ingly in Yesterdays with Authors, by James T. Fields, and in 
Memories of a Hostess, edited from the journals of Mrs. James 
T. Fields, by M. de Wolfe Howe. People stood in line all of 
a cold November day to buy tickets-for his first readings in 
Boston. He wrote home, in December from New York, 
“Speculators are now furnished (this is literally true and I.am 
quite serious) each man with a little bag of bread and meat, two 
blankets, and a bottle of whiskey. With this outfit they lie 
down in line on the pavement the whole night' before the 
tickets are sold ; generally taking their position at about ten,” 

The immense financial returns for his readings, however, could 
not compensate for their tremendous tax on a man whose nerv¬ 
ous systejii had already been too heavily taxed by a life of 


XXVI 


INTRODUCTION 


strenuous and unremitting literary labor. A preliminary stroke 
of paralysis gave its warning in 1869, and in the evening of June 8, 
1870, at Gadshill, he succumbed to a second stroke. 

In accordance with the written instructions of his will he was 
buried quietly, though his family yielded to the request of the 
dean of Westminster Abbey to let his last resting place be in 
the famous Poet’s Corner of the Abbey. Probably no tribute, 
of the thousands paid the novelist at the time of his death, 
would have pleased him more than the one paid him by Thomas 
Carlyle whom he both loved and admired. The old philosopher 
of The French Revolution, whose great book had done so much 
to inspire and stimulate Dickens to write his novel of the same 
period, said: “ It is almost thirty years since my acquaintance 
with him began; and on my side I may say that every new meet¬ 
ing ripened it into more clear discernment of his rare and great 
worth as a brother man; a most cordial, sincere, clear-sighted, 
quietly decisive, just and loving man. . . . The good, the 
gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble Dickens, — every inch 
of him an Honest Man.” 


Appreciation of “ A Tale of Two Cities ” 

Plot. In his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens succeeded 
in his wish to write “ a picturesque story, rising, in every chapter 
— a story of incident pounding the characters in its own mortar 
and beating their interest out of them.” Dr. Manette, sud¬ 
denly and secretly imprisoned in the Bastille, eighteen years 
before the events of the novel, is “ recalled to life ” at the begin¬ 
ning of the story, and it is a document written and concealed 
by him during his imprisonment that precipitates the tragic 
situation in the closing chapters. 

For many years following his release he lives in London, where 
the tender care of his daughter Lucie succeeds in rebuilding 
his broken and apparently ruined life. Through the charm 
and gentle understanding of this daughter and his own unusual 
personality, their home in Soho Square becomes the meeting 


APPRECIATION 


XXV11 


place for a small group of English friends and one young 
Frenchman called Charles Darnay. This fellow countryman, 
like Dr. Manette himself, is an emigre, but unlike the doctor’s 
Darnay’s exile is a voluntary one. 

As the narrative progresses, we become more and more con¬ 
scious of some mysterious connection between Dr. Manette 
and this young French aspirant for the hand of Lucie. Yet the 
puzzle remains unsolved until, near the close of the novel, when 
Therese and Ernest Defarge produce a document that had been 
in their keeping since the day the Bastille fell. It was read before 
a revolutionary tribunal — this long-hidden denunciation by 
Dr. Manette of the race represented by his own cherished son- 
in-law. 

Another well-planned aspect of the plot is that Darnay is not 
only innocent of wrong-doing himself, but that it is his life¬ 
long effort to right some of the wrongs perpetrated by his family 
that brings him before this tribunal where the sins of his father 
and his uncle are visited upon him. 

Madame Defarge is the active agent of this tragic retribution, 
and the force and excess of her implacable and personal hatred 
of the race of Evremonde is set off by her admiring and patri¬ 
otic husband’s sympathy for his old master, the former Bastille 
prisoner. His consequent weakness, as Madame calls it, makes 
her fearful that he cannot be trusted in regard to the extermina¬ 
tion of the race of Evremonde, by the guillotining of Darnay’s 
wife and little daughter. Just at the close of the story this 
mistrust of her admiring partner-in-vengeance brings about 
her necessary and ignominious death by the hand of Lucie’s 
devoted and faithful Miss Pross. 

This loyal Englishwoman and her homeward-bound escort, 
Jerry Cruncher, were each brought to Paris to play a definite 
part in the plot of the novel. It is the revelation made in Mr. 
Lorry’s Paris office — a revelation growing out of Jerry’s noc¬ 
turnal and dishonest trade — that strengthens Sydney Carton’s 
hand of cards so forcibly that he is able to negotiate satis¬ 
factorily with John Barsad, the professional prison spy of two 
nations, for the exchange of prisoners at the Conciergerie. 


XXV111 


INTRODUCTION 


It is also only at the actual close of the story that we see 
why it was that Dickens had made Darnay’s acquittal in the 
Old Bailey trial depend upon the striking likeness between him¬ 
self and the rather strange young man who tossed the note to 
Mr. Stryver. 

Setting. Not only are these details of a perfectly constructed 
plot worked out to a tragic yet satisfying conclusion, but the 
novelist is equally successful in the handling of his setting. 
We are conscious, almost from the beginning of the story, of 
the impending threat of the coming revolution. The peaceful 
English scenes, under the plane tree in the garden, or around 
the tea board in the drawing-room in Soho Square, make even 
more striking by contrast the violent scenes in France. Forster 
has expressed it well, when he says, “ We see the life of a few 
private people so knitted and interwoven with the outbreak of 
a terrible public event, that the one seems but a part of the 
other. When made conscious of the first sultry drops of a 
thunder-storm that fall upon a little group in an obscure Eng¬ 
lish lodging, we behold the actual beginning of a tempest which 
is preparing to sweep everything in France.” 

Characters. Intent on carrying out his expressed design 
of constructing a novel covering the period of the Revolution, 
whose “ incidents might add something to the popular and 
picturesque means of understanding that terrible time,” Dickens 
has painted many of his characters less distinctly as individuals 
and more definitely as tj'pes of certain classes or groups of the 
late eighteenth-century social system. Monseigneur, whether 
in town or country, is the type of the vanishing order of the over- 
refined, self-centered, and grasping old French courtier, while 
Darnay represents the new order and the new philosophy. 
The Defarges stand for the downtrodden populace of Paris 
just as the road-mender represents the more stupid and more 
oppressed people of the rural districts. Even Lucie herself, 
gentle and lovable, as we see her through the eyes of “ hundreds 
of people,” binding together the lives of her family and friends, 


APPRECIATION 


XXIX 


seems more like the golden thread by which Dickens symbolizes 
her than a vital, living personality revealed through her own 
self-directed action. 

Mr. Stryver, “ shouldering his way into the law,” Miss Pross, 
and Jerry Cruncher, who give a little humorous relief in this 
tragic tale, are, with their striking individualities, portrayed fre¬ 
quently in caricature, more like the creations of Dickens’s earlier 
novels. Jerry Jr., though he appears seldom, is a lively, natural 
boy, and very vitally alive to us the night that we race home 
with him from Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. 

Dr. Manette, shadowy and unreal at the beginning of the 
novel, rehabilitates himself into a very lovable and efficient 
personality as the story progresses; but even in the days of the 
Terror, when he moves about with a charmed life through the 
prisons of Paris, he is a figure created by the story rather than 
a self-directed personality. 

Two characters remain, Mr. Lorry and Sydney Carton. And 
when, on the night before Darnay’s last trial, as these two sit 
together before the fire in Mr. Lorry’s room in the Paris House 
of Tellson, and Carton says, “ You are a good man and a true 
friend,” we feel that the younger man is right. Dickens has 
given us a real person in Mr. Lorry. This trusted agent of 
Tellson’s, who, according to Miss Pross, was a bachelor in his 
cradle and according to his own statement had been a man of 
business even as a boy; the neat, brown Mr. Lorry of the flaxen 
wig, whom we saw at Dover, and, whom, later, we have watched 
dealing so gently and tactfully and yet so firmly with his friend 
Dr. Manette, and so wisely counseling and acting for Lucie on 
her arrival in Paris, is a dependable English gentleman as well 
as a man of business. He is worthy of Carton’s tribute and also 
capable of fulfilling the hard promise that Carton makes him 
give the following night; for upon Mr. Lorry is to depend the 
final success of Carton’s plan for getting Lucie and her family 
safely back to England. 

Carton himself is strikingly self-revealed each time we meet 
him, from the morning that we first see him staring at the ceil¬ 
ing in the court room of the Old Bailey to the moment that he 


XXX 


INTRODUCTION 


stands on the scaffold of the guillotine in the place of Darnay. 
First thrown together by a “ strange chance ” at Darnay’s first 
trial, the lives of these two men continue to be strangely yet 
lightly bound together by Carton’s deep and ideal regard for 
Darnay’s wife, until, to save a life she loved, he plans with all 
the strategy and foresight that his trained and legal mind could 
muster to pay the price of his own life. So brilliantly does he 
scheme, and so wisely and tenderly does he plan every detail, 
even through his last message written by the hand of Darnay, 
that those for whom the offering was made oould always look 
back upon it as the glad and generous gift of a friend rather 
than the sacrifice of what had for so many years appeared to be 
a wasted and misspent life. 















A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


IN THREE BOOKS 

BOOK THE FIRST — RECALLED TO LIFE 
CHAPTER I 

THE PERIOD 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was 
the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the 
epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the 
season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring 
of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before 
us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to 
Heaven, we were all going direct the other way — in short, the 
period was so far like the present period, that some of its 
noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or 
for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. 

There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain 
face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large 
jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In 
both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the 
State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were 
settled for ever. 

It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to Eng¬ 
land at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had 
recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of 
whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded 
the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were 
made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even 


2 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the Cock Lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, 
after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year 
last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out 
theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately 
come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of 
British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have 
proved more important to the human race than any communica¬ 
tions yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock Lane 
brood. 

France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual 
than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding 
smoothness down-hill, making paper money and spending it. 
Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained 
herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing 
a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with 
pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled 
down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks 
which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or 
sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of 
France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that suf 
ferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate; 
to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain mova¬ 
ble framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. 
It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers 
of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from 
the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic 
mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which 
the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils 
of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, 
though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard 
them as they went about with muffled tread : the rather, foras¬ 
much as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake was 
to be atheistical and traitorous. 

In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and pro* 
tection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries 
by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital 
itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go 
out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers’ 
warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


3 


City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged 
by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of 
“ the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the head and rode 
away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard 
shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other 
four, “ in consequence of the failure of his ammunition: ” after 
which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, 
the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on 
Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illus¬ 
trious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London 
jails fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the 
law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of 
shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the 
necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went 
into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob 
fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, 
and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the 
common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy 
and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, 
stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hang¬ 
ing a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tues¬ 
day ; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, 
and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; 
to day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow 
of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of six¬ 
pence. 

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in 
and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and 
the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and 
those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir 
enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. 
Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy- 
five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures 
— the creatures of this chronicle among the rest — along the 
roads that lay before them. 


4 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


CHAPTER II 

THE MAIL 

It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in 
November, before the first of the persons with whom this his¬ 
tory has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the 
Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter’s Hill. He walked 
up-hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the 
passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walk¬ 
ing exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and 
the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that 
the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once 
drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of 
taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman 
and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of 
war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of 
the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Rea¬ 
son ; and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty. 

With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their 
way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between 
whiles as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As 
often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, 
with a wary “ Wo-ho ! so-ho then ! ” the near leader violently 
shook his head and everything upon it — like an unusually 
emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the 
hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger 
started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in 
mind. 

There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had 
roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking 
rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it 
made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly fol¬ 
lowed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwhole¬ 
some sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything 
from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 5 

and a few yards of road ; and the reek of the labouring horses 
steamed into it, as if they had made it all. 

Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the 
hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the 
cheek-bones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one 
of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either 
of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost 
as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes 
of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers 
were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for any¬ 
body on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. 
As to the latter, when every posting-house and alehouse could 
produce somebody in “the Captain’s” pay, ranging from the 
landlord to the lowest stable nondescript, it was the likeliest 
thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought 
to himself, that Friday night in November one thousand seven 
hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter’s Hill, as he 
stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his 
feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before 
him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight 
loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass. 

The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the 
guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one 
another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and 
the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which 
cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on 
the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey. 

“Wo-ho!” said the coachman. “So, then! One more 
pull and you’re at the top and be damned to you, for I have 
had trouble enough to get you to it! — Joe ! ” 

“ Halloa ! ” the guard replied. 

“What o’clock do you make it, Joe?” 

“ Ten minutes, good, past eleven.” 

“My blood!” ejaculated the vexed coachman, “and not 
atop of Shooter’s yet ? Tst! Yah ! Get on with you ! ” 

The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided 
negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other 
horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, 
with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its 


6 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they 
kept close company with it. If any one of the three had had 
the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead 
into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair 
way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman. 

The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. 
The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down 
to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door to 
let the passengers in. 

“ Tst! Joe ! ” cried the coachman, in a warning voice, look¬ 
ing down from his box. 

“ What do you say, Tom ? ” 

They both listened. 

“ I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.” 

“ I say a horse at a gallop, Tom,” returned the guard, leav¬ 
ing his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. 
“ Gentlemen ! In the king’s name, all of you ! ” 

With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and 
stood on the offensive. 

The passenger booked by this history was on the coach-step, 
getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, 
and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the 
coach and half out of it; they remained in the road below him. 
They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the 
guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked 
back, and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader 
pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. 

The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling 
and labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, 
made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses commu¬ 
nicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a 
state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud 
enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause 
was audibly expressive cf people out of breath, and holding the 
breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. 

The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up 
the hill. 

‘ So-ho! ” the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. 
“Yo there! Stand! I shall fire!” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


7 


The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing 
and floundering, a man’s voice called from the mist, “ Is that 
the Dover mail ? ” 

“ Never you mind what it is ! ” the guard retorted. “ What 
are you ? ” 

“ Is that the Dover mail ? ” 

“ Why do you want to know ? ” 

“ I want a passenger, if it is.” 

“What passenger?” 

“Mr. Jarvis Lorry.” 

Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his 
name. The guard, the coachman, and the other two passen¬ 
gers, eyed him distrustfully. 

“ Keep where you are,” the guard called to the voice in the 
mist, “ because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be 
set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry 
answer straight.” 

“What is the matter?” asked the passenger, then, with 
mildly quavering speech. “Who wants me? Is it Jerry?” 

(“I don’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,” growled the 
guard to himself. “ He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.”) 

“ Yes, Mr. Lorry.” 

“ What is the matter ? ” 

“ A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.” 

“ I know this messenger, guard,” said Mr. Lorry, getting 
down into the road — assisted from behind more swiftly than 
politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scram¬ 
bled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. 
“ He may come close ; there’s nothing wrong.” 

“ I hope there ain’t, but I can’t make so ’Nation sure of 
that,” said the guard, in grutf soliloquy. “ Hallo you ! ” 

“ Well! And hallo you ! ” said Jerry, more hoarsely than 
before. 

“Come on at a footpace; d’ye mind me? And if you’ve 
got holsters to that saddle o’ yourn, don’t let me see your hand 
go nigh ’em. For I’m a devil at a quick mistake, and when 1 
make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let’s look at 
you.” 

The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the 


8 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the pas¬ 
senger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at 
the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The 
rider’s horse was blown, and both horse and rider were covered 
with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man. 

u Guard! ” said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business 
confidence. 

The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his 
raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the 
horseman, answered curtly, “ Sir.” 

“ There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson’s Bank. 
You must know Tellson’s Bank in London. I am goingto 
Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read this ? ” 

“ If so be as you’re quick, sir.” 

He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and 
read — first to himself and then aloud : “ 4 Wait at Dover for 
Mam’selle.’ It’s not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my 
answer was, Recalled to life.” 

Jerry started in his saddle. “That’s a Blazing strange 
answer, too,” said he, at his hoarsest. 

“ Take that message back, and they will know that I received 
this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good 
night.” 

With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and 
got in ; not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had 
expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, 
and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With 
no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating 
any other kind of action. 

The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist 
closing round it as it began the descent. The guard soon 
replaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and having looked 
to the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supple¬ 
mentary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller 
chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few smith’s tools, 
a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was furnished 
with that completeness, that if the coach-lamps had been blown 
and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to 
shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off 


A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


9 


the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he 
were lucky) in five minutes. 

“ Tom !” softly over the coach-roof. 

“ Hallo, Joe.” 

•* Did you hear the message 1 ” 

“I did, Joe.” 

“ What did you make of it, Tom ? ” 

“ Nothing at all, Joe.” 

“ That’s a coincidence, too,” the guard mused, “ for I made 
the same of it myself.” 

Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted mean¬ 
while, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud 
from his face, and to shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which 
might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After stand¬ 
ing with the bridle over his heavily splashed arm, until the 
wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the night 
was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill. 

“ After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won’t 
trust your fore-legs till I get you on the level,” said this hoarse 
messenger, glancing at his mare. “ ‘ Recalled to life.’ That’s 
a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn’t do for you, 
Jerry ! I say, Jerry! You’d be in a Blazing bad way, if 
recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry! ” 


CHAPTER III 

THE NIGHT SHADOWS 

A WONDERFUL fact to reflect upon, that every human crea¬ 
ture is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to 
every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city 
by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses incloses 
its own secret; that every room in every one of them incloses 
its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of 
thousands of breasts there is, in some of its imaginings, a 
secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, 


10 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn 
the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in 
time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this 
unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into 
it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things sub- 
merged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a 
spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It 
was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal 
frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in 
ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is 
dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexo¬ 
rable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was 
always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine 
to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places in this city 
through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than 
its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, 
or than I am to them ? 

As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, 
the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as 
the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in 
London. So with the three passengers shut up in the narrow 
compass of one lumbering old mail-coach; they were mysteries 
to one another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach 
and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the breadth of a county 
between him and the next. 

The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty 
often at alehouses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency 
to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his 
eyes. He had eyes that assorted very well with that decora¬ 
tion, being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or 
form, and much too near together — as if they were afraid of 
being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. 
They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked hat like a 
three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin 
and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. 
When he stopped for drink, he moved this muffler with his 
left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with his right; as 
soon as that was done, he muffled again. 

“ No, Jerry, no ! ” said the messenger, harping on one theme 



mark this cross of blood upon him as a sign that I do it. 





































































































A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


11 


as he rode. “It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you 
honest tradesman, it wouldn’t suit your line of business! 
Recalled — ! Bust me if I don’t think he’d been a drinking ! ” 

His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was 
fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. 
Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, 
black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down-hill 
almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like smith’s work, 
so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a 
head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have 
declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go 
over. 

While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver 
to the night watchman in his box at t$e door of Tellson’s Bank, 
by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities 
within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as 
arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as 
arose out of her private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to 
be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. 

What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and 
bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables 
inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed 
themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering 
thoughts suggested. 

Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank 
passenger — with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, 
which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against 
the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever 
the coach got a special jolt — nodded in his place with half¬ 
shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly 
gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite pas¬ 
senger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. 
The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and more 
drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with 
all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. 
Then the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s, with such of 
their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the pas¬ 
senger (and it was not a little that he knew about them), 
opened before him, and he went in among them with the great 


12 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


keys and the feebly burning candle, and found them safe, and 
strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them. 

But though the bank was almost always with him, and 
though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain 
under an opiate) was always with him, there was another cur¬ 
rent of impression that never ceased to run, all through the 
night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave. 

How, which of the multitude of faces that showed them¬ 
selves before him was the true face of the buried person, the 
shadows of the night did not indicate; but they were all the 
faces of a man of five-and-forty by years, and they differed 
principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghastli¬ 
ness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, 
stubbornness, submission, #amentation, succeeded one another; 
so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated 
hands and fingers. But the face was in the main one face, and 
every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the 
dozing passenger inquired of this spectre: — 

“Buried how long?” 

The answer was always the same: “ Almost eighteen 

years.” 

“You had abandoned all hope of being dug out ? ” 

“Long ago.” 

“You know that you are recalled to life?” 

“ They tell me so.” 

“ I hope you care to live ? ” 

“ I can’t say.” 

“ Shall I show her to you ? Will you come and see her ? ” 

The answers to this question were various and contradictory. 
Sometimes the broken reply was, “ Wait! It would kill me if 
I saw her too soon.” Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain 
of tears, and then it was, “ Take me to her.” Sometimes, it 
was staring and bewildered, and then it was, “ I don’t know 
her. I don’t understand.” 

After such an imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy 
would dig, and dig, dig — now with a spade, now with a great 
key, now with his hands — to dig this wretched creature out. 
Got out at last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he 
would suddenly fall away to dust. The passenger would then 


A TALE OP TWO CITIES 13 

start to himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of 
mist and rain on his cheek. 

Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, 
on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at 
the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the 
coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. 
The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the 
past day, the real strong-rooms, the real express sent after him, 
and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the 
midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost 
it again. 

“ Buried how long ? ” 

“ Almost eighteen years.” 

“ I hope you care to live?” 

“ I can’t say.” 

Dig — dig — dig — until an impatient movement from one of 
the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, 
draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate 
upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of 
them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave. 

“Buried how long? ” 

“ Almost eighteen years.” 

“ You had abandoned all hope of being dug out ? ” 

“ Long ago.” 

The words were still in his hearing as just spoken — dis¬ 
tinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life 
— when the weary passenger started to the consciousness of 
daylight, and found that the shadows of the night were gone. 

He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. 
There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it 
where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked ; 
beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning 
red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though 
the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose 
bright, placid, and beautiful. 

“ Eighteen years! ” said the passenger, looking at the sun. 
“ Gracious Creator of Day! To be buried alive for eighteen 
years ! ” 


14 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


CHAPTER IV 

THE PREPARATION 

When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of 
the forenoon, the head-drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened 
the coach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish 
of ceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was 
an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller 
upon. 

By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left 
to he congratulated; for the two others had been set down at 
their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of 
the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, 
and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, 
the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a 
tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was 
rather like a larger sort of dog. 

“There will be a packet to Calais to-morrow, drawer?” 

“ Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable 
fair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the 
afternoon, sir. Bed, sir ? ” 

“ I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and 
a barber.” 

“And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you 
please. Show Concord! Gentleman’s valise and hot water to 
Concord. Pull off gentleman’s boots in Concord. (You will 
find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir 
about, there, now, for Concord ! ” 

The Concord bed-ehamber being always assigned to a pas¬ 
senger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always 
heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd 
interest for the establishment of the Royal George that although 
but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varie¬ 
ties of men came out of it. Consequently another drawer, and 
two porters, and several maids, and the landlady, were all loiter- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


15 


mg by accident at various points of the road between the Con¬ 
cord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally 
dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very 
well kept, with large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, 
passed along on his way to his breakfast. 

The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than 
the gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before 
the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting 
for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for 
his portrait. 

Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each 
knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his 
flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity 
against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a 
good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings 
fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and 
buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little 
sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which 
wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked 
far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. 
His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stock¬ 
ings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the 
neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the 
sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted 
was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist 
bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, 
some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of 
Tellson’s Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and 
his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But perhaps 
the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson’s Bank were princi¬ 
pally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps 
second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off 
and on. 

Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his 
portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off asleep. The arrival of his break¬ 
fast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his 
chair to it: — 

‘ I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may 
come here at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis 


16 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson'a 
Bank. Please to let me know.” 

“Yes, sir. Tellson’s Bank in London, sir?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain 
your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwards 
betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, 
in Tellson and Company’s House.” 

“Yes. We are quite a French house, as well as an English 
one.” 

“ Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling your¬ 
self, I think, sir?” 

“ Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we—since I— 
came last from France.” 

“ Indeed, sir ? That was before my time here, sir. Before 
our people’s time here, sir. The George was in other hands at 
that time, sir.” 

“ I believe so.” 

“ But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like 
Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to 
speak of fifteen years ago ? ” 

“You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet 
not be far from the truth.” 

“ Indeed, sir ! ” 

Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped back¬ 
ward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his 
right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and 
stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from an 
observatory or watch-tower. According to the immemorial 
usage of waiters in all ages. 

When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for 
a stroll on the beach. The little, narrow, crooked town of 
Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the 
chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of 
heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did 
what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered 
at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast 
down madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a 
piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


IT 


up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in 
the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity 
of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly 
at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small 
tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccount¬ 
ably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody 
in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter. 

As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which 
had been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to 
be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry’s 
thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it was dark, and he sat 
before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited 
his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging, in 
the live red coals. 

A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red 
coals no harm, otherwise than it has a tendency to throw him 
out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had 
just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an 
appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly 
gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a 
bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and 
rumbled into the inn-yard. 

He set down his glass untouched. “ This is Mam’selle! ” 
said he. 

In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that 
Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to 
see the gentleman from Tellson’s. 

“ So soon ? ” 

Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and 
required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the gen¬ 
tleman from Tellson’s immediately, if it suited his pleasure and 
convenience. 

The gentleman from Tellson’s had nothing left for it but to 
empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd 
little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss 
Manette’s apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in 
a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy 
dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall 
candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily 


18 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


reflected on every leaf; as if they were buried, in deep graves 
of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected 
from them until they were dug out. 

The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, 
picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed 
Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, 
until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw standing to 
receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young 
lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still 
holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As 
his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of 
golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquir¬ 
ing look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering 
how young and smooth it was) of lifting and knitting itself 
into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or 
wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, though 
it included all the four expressions — as his eyes rested on 
these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a 
child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that 
very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and 
the sea ran high. The likeness passed away, say, like a breath 
along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the 
frame of which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several 
headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead 
Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender — and he 
made his formal bow to Miss Manette. 

“ Pray take a seat, sir.” In a very clear and pleasant young 
voice : a little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed. 

“ I kiss your hand, miss,” said Mr. Lorry, with the manners 
of an earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took 
his seat. 

“ I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing 
me that some intelligence — or discovery — ” 

“ The word is not material, miss; either word will do.” 

“ — respecting the small property of my poor father whom I 
never saw — so long dead — ” 

Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look 
towards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if they 
had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets! 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


19 


“ — rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to 
communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be 
despatched to Paris for the purpose.” 

“ Myself.” 

“ As I was prepared to hear, sir.” 

She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those 
days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how 
much older and wiser he was than she. He made her another 
bow. 

“ I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered neces¬ 
sary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, 
that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and 
have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly 
if I might be permitted to place myself during the journey, 
under that worthy gentleman’s protection. The gentleman had 
left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg 
the favour of his waiting for me here.” 

“I was happy,” said Mr. Lorry, “to be entrusted with the 
charge. I shall be more happy to execute it.” 

“ Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It 
was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to 
me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself 
to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best to 
prepare myself, and I naturally have a strong and eager interest 
to know what they are.” 

“ Naturally,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Yes — I — ” 

After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig 
at the ears : — 

“ It is very difficult to begin.” 

He did not begin, but in his indecision met her glance. The 
young forehead lifted itself into that singular expression — but 
it was pretty and characteristic, besides being singular — and 
she raised her hand, as if with an involuntary action she caught 
at, or stayed, some passing shadow. 

“ Are you quite a stranger to me, sir ? ” 

“ Am I not 1 ” Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended 
them outward with an argumentative smile. 

Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, 
the line of which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to 


20 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


be, the expression deepened itself as she took her seat thought¬ 
fully in the chair by which she had hitherto remained standing. 
He watched her as she mused, and the moment she raised her 
eyes again, went on : — 

“ In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better 
than address you as a young English lady, Miss Manette ? ” 

“ If you please, sir.” 

“Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business 
charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed 
me any more than if I was a speaking machine — truly, I am 
not much else. I will, with your leave, relate to you, miss, the 
story of one of our customers.” 

“ Story! ” 

He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, 
when he added in a hurry, “Yes, customers; in the banking 
business we usually call our connection our customers. He was 
a French gentleman; a scientific gentleman; a man of great 
acquirements — a doctor.” 

“Not of Beauvais 1 ” 

“Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your 
father, the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, 
your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the 
honour of knowing him there. Our relations were business 
relations, but confidential. I was at that time in our French 
House, and had been — oh ! twenty years.” 

“ At that time — I may ask, at what time, sir 1 ” 

“I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married — an 
English lady—and I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like 
the affairs of many other French gentlemen and French families, 
were entirely in Tellson’s hands. In a similar way, I am, or I 
have been, trustee of one kind or other for scores of our custom¬ 
ers. These are mere business relations, miss ; there is no friend¬ 
ship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I. 
have passed from one to another, in the course of my business 
life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the 
course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings ; I am 
a mere machine. To go on — ” 

“ But this is my father’s story, sir; and I begin to think ” 
— the curiously roughened forehead was very intent upon him 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


21 


— “ that when I was left an orphan through my mother’s surviv¬ 
ing my father only two years, it was you who brought me to 
England. I am almost sure it was you.” 

Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly 
advanced to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his 
lips. He then conducted the young lady straightway to her 
chair again, and, holding the chair-back with his left hand, and 
using his right by turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the 
ears, or point what he said, stood looking down into her face 
while she sat looking up into his. 

“Miss Manette, it was I. And you will see how truly I 
spoke of myself just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that 
all the relations I hold with my fellow-creatures are mere busi¬ 
ness relations, when you reflect that I have never seen you since. 
No; you have been the ward of Tellson’s House since, and I 
have been busy with the other business of Tellson’s House since. 
Feelings ! I have no time for them, no chance of them. I pass 
my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary Mangle.” 

After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, 
Mr. Lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both 
hands (which was most unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter 
than its shining surface was before), and resumed his former 
attitude. 

“ So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of 
your regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your 
father had not died when he did — Don’t be frightened ! How 
• you start! ” 

She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both 
her hands. 

“ Pray,” said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left 
hand from the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory 
fingers that clasped him in so violent a tremble, “ pray control 
your agitation — a matter of business. As I was saying — ” 

Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and 
beg an anew : — 

“ As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he 
had suddenly and silently disappeared; if he had been spirited 
away; if it had not been difficult to guess to what dreadful 
place, though no art could trace him; if he had an enemy in 


22 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


some compatriot who could exercise a privilege that I in my 
own time have known the boldest people afraid to speak of in 
a whisper, across the water there, for instance, the privilege of 
filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one to the 
oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had 
implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any 
tidings of him, and all quite in vain; — then the history of 
your father would have been the history of this unfortunate 
gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais.” 

“ I entreat you to tell me more, sir.” 

“ I will. I am going to. You can bear it?” 

“ I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at 
this moment.” 

“You speak collectedly, and you — are collected. That’s 
good ! ” (Though his manner was less satisfied than his 
words.) “A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of 
business — business that must be done. Now, if this Doctor’s 
wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, had suffered so 
intensely from this cause before her little child was born — ” 

“ The little child was a daughter, sir.” 

“ A daughter. A — a — matter of business — don’t be dis¬ 
tressed. Miss, if the poor lady had suffered so intensely before 
her little child was born, that she came to the determination of 
sparing the poor child the inheritance of any part of the agony 
she had known the pains of, by rearing her in the belief that 
her father was dead — No, don’t kneel! In Heaven’s name 
why should you kneel to me ! ” 

“ For the truth. 0 dear, good, compassionate sir, for the 
truth! ” 

“A — a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can 
I transact business if I am confused ? Let us be clear-headed. 
If you could kindly mention now, for instance, what nine times 
ninepence are, or how many shillings in twenty guineas, it 
would be so encouraging. I should be so much more at my 
ease about your state of mind.” 

Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when 
he had very gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to 
clasp his wrists were so much more steady than they had been, 
that she communicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


23 


“ That’s right, that’s right. Courage ! Business ! You have 
business before you ; useful business. Miss Manette, your 
mother took this course with you. And when she died — I 
believe broken-hearted — having never slackened her unavailing 
search for your father, she left you, at two years old, to grow to 
be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud upon 
you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his 
heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering 
years.” 

As he said the words, he looked down, with an admiring pity, 
on the flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it 
might have been already tinged with grey. 

“You know that your parents had no great possession, and 
that what they had was secured to your mother and to you. 
There has been no new discovery, of money, or of any other 
property ; but — ” 

He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression 
in the forehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, 
and which was now immovable, had deepened into one of pain 
and horror. 

“But he has been — been found. He is alive. Greatly 
changed, it is too probable; almost a wreck, it is possible; 
though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your father has 
been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and we are 
going there : I, to identify him, if I can : you, to restore him to 
life, love, duty, rest, comfort.” 

A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. 
She said, in a low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were 
saying it in a dream : — 

“ I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost — not 
him! ” 

Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. 
“ There, there, there ! See now, see now ! The best and the 
worst are known to you now. You are well on your w T ay to the 
poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair 
land journey, you will be soon at his dear side.” 

She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, “I have 
been free, I have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted 
me l ” 


24 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Only one thing more,” said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon 
it as a wholesome means of enforcing her attention : “he has 
been found under another name ; his own, long forgotten or long 
concealed. It would be worse than useless now to inquire 
which; worse than useless to seek to know whether he has 
been for years overlooked, or always designedly held prisoner. 
It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, 
because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the sub¬ 
ject anywhere or in any way, and to remove him — for a while 
at all events — out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, 
and even Tellson’s, important as they are to French credit, avoid 
all naming of the matter. I carry about me not a scrap of 
writing openly referring to it. This is a secret service alto¬ 
gether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all com¬ 
prehended in the one line, ‘ Recalled to Life; ’ which may mean 
anything. But what is the matter! She doesn’t notice a 
word ! Miss Manette ! ” 

Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her 
chair, she sat under his hand, utterly insensible; with her eyes 
open and fixed upon him, and with that last expression looking 
as if it were carved or branded into her forehead. So close was 
her hold upon his arm, that he feared to detach himself lest he 
should hurt her; therefore he called out loudly for assistance 
without moving. 

A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation Mr. 
Lorry observed to be all of a red colour, and to have red hair, 
and to be dressed in some extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, 
and to have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Grena¬ 
dier wooden measure, and good measure too, or a great Stilton 
cheese, came running into the room in advance of the inn servants, 
and soon settled the question of his detachment from the poor 
young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and send¬ 
ing him flying back against the nearest wall. 

(“ I really think this must be a man! ” was Mr. Lorry’s 
breathless reflection, simultaneously with his coming against 
the wall.) 

“ Why, look at you all! ” bawled this figure, addressing the 
inn servants. “ Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead of 
standing there staring at me 'l I am not so much to look at, 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


25 


am I? Why don’t you go and fetch things? I’ll let you 
know, if you don’t bring smelling-salts, cold water, and vinegar, 
quick, I will! ” 

There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and 
she softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great 
skill and gentleness: calling her “ my precious! ” and “ my 
bird! ” and spreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders 
with great pride and care. 

“ And you in brown ! ” she said, indignantly turning to Mr. 
Lorry; “ couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, with¬ 
out frightening her to death ? Look at her, with her pretty 
pale face and her cold hands. Do you call that being a 
Banker ?” 

Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question 
so hard to answer, that he could only look on at a distance, 
with much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong 
woman, having banished the inn servants under the mysterious 
penalty of “ letting them know ” something not mentioned if 
they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a regular 
series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head 
upon her shoulder. 

“ I hope she will do well now,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling 
pretty! ” 

“I hope,” said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble 
sympathy and humility, “that you accompany Miss Manette 
to France?” 

“ A likely thing, too ! ” replied the strong woman. “ If it 
was ever intended that I should go across salt water, do you 
suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island ? ” 

This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis 
Lorry withdrew to consider it. 





26 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


CHAPTER V 

THE WINE-SHOP 

A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken in the 
street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart ; 
the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and 
it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, 
shattered like a walnut-shell. 

All the people within reach had suspended their business, 
or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The 
rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and 
designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living 
creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little 
pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group 
or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, 
made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to 
help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the 
wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and 
women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated 
earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, 
which were squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made 
small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, 
directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and 
there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new 
directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee- 
dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister 
wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drain¬ 
age to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, 
but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might 
have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with 
it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. 

A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices—-voices of 
men, women, and children — resounded in the street while this 
wine-game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, 
and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


27 


it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join 
some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or 
Jighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, 
shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a 
dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places 
where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron- 
pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as 
they had broken out. The man who had left his saw T sticking 
in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the 
woman who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, 
at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own 
starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; 
men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who 
had emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away 
to descend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that 
appeared more natural to it than sunshine. 

The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the 
narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it 
was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, 
and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of 
the man who sawed the w r ood left red marks on the billets; and 
the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby was stained 
with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. 
Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask had 
acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth ; and one tall joker 
so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a 
nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped 
in muddy wine lees — Blood. 

The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled 
on the street stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon 
many there. 

And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a 
momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the 
darkness of it was heavy — cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and 
want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence— nobles 
of great power all of them; but, most especially, the last. 
Samples of a people who had undergone a terrible grinding and 
re-grinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill 
which ground old people young, shivered at every corner,, passed 


28 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, flut¬ 
tered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The 
mill which had worked them dowm was the mill that grinds 
young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave 
voices ; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed 
into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sign, 
Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed 
out of the tall houses in the wretched clothing that hung upon 
poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw T and 
rag and wood and paper ; Hunger was repeated in every frag¬ 
ment of the small modicum of firewood that the man saw^ed off; 
Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started 
up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of 
anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the bakers 
shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad 
bread ; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that 
was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the 
roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred 
into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of 
potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil. 

Its abiding-place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow 
winding street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow 
winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, 
and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all visible things 
with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted 
air of the people there was yet some wild-beast thought of the 
possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though 
they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor com-, 
pressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads 
knitted into the likeness of the gallows rope they mused about 
enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost 
as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. 
The butcher and the porkman painted up only the leanest 
scrags of meat; the baker the coarsest of meagre loaves. The 
people, rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, croaked 
over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were 
gloweringly confidential together, Nothing was represented in a 
flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but the cutler's 
knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


29 


were heavy, and the gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The 
crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs 
of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at 
the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down the middle 
of the street — when it ran at all: which was only after heavy 
rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. 
Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung 
by a rope and pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let 
these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove 
of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they 
were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew 
were in peril of tempest. 

For the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of 
that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idle¬ 
ness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving 
on his method, and hauling up men by these ropes and pulleys, 
to flare upon the darkness of their condition. But the time 
was not come yet; and every wind that blew over France shook 
the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song 
and feather, took no warning. 

The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others 
in its appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop 
had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, 
looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. “ It’s not my 
affair,” said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. “ The 
people from the market did it. Let them bring another.” 

There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up 
his joke, he called to him across the way : — 

“ Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there ? ” 

The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as 
is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark and com¬ 
pletely failed, as is often the way with his tribe too. 

“What now? Are you a subject for the mad-hospital ? ” 
said the wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating 
the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and 
smeared over it. “ Why do you write in the public streets ? 
Is there — tell me, thou — is there no other place to write such 
words in ? ” 

In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps 


80 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker 
rapped with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came 
down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained 
shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. A joker 
of an extremely, not to say wolfishly, practical character, he 
looked, under those circumstances. 

“ Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “ Call wine, wine; 
and finish there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand 
upon the joker’s dress, such as it was — quite deliberately, as 
having dirtied the hand on his account; and then recrossed 
the road and entered the wine-shop. 

The wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking 
man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, 
for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but earned 
one slung over his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up. 
too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither 
did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisply 
curling, short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with 
good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good- 
humoured looking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too ; 
evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose ; a 
man not desirable to be met rushing down a narrow pass with 
a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn the man. 

Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the coun¬ 
ter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of 
about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed 
to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, 
strong features, and great composure of manner. There was 
a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might 
have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against 
herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. 
Madame Defarge, being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, 
and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, 
though not to the concealment of her large ear-rings. Her 
knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her 
teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow 
supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing 
when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. 
This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eye- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


81 


brows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested 
to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop 
among the customers for any new customer who had dropped 
in while he stepped over the way. 

The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until 
they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who 
were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two 
playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the 
counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed 
behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman 
said in a look to the young lady, “ This is our man.” 

“ What the devil do you do in that gallery there! ” said 
Monsieur Defarge to himself; “I don’t know you.” 

But he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into 
discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking 
at the counter. 

“ How goes it, Jacques ? ” said one of these three to Mon¬ 
sieur Defarge. “ Is all the spilt wine swallowed?” 

“ Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge. 

When this interchange of Christian name was effected, 
Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, 
coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by 
the breadth of another line. 

“ It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing 
Monsieur Defarge, “ that many of these miserable beasts know 
the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. 
Is it not so, Jacques? ” 

“ It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned. 

At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame 
Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, 
coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by 
the breadth of another line. 

The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his 
empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips. 

“ Ah ! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that 
such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives 
they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?” 

“You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur 
Defarge, 


32 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


This third interchange of the Christian name was completed 
at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, 
kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat. 

“ Hold then ! True ! ” muttered her husband. “ Gentle¬ 
men — my wife ! ” 

The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame 
Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their hom¬ 
age by bending her head, and giving them a quick look, 
Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop,, 
took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose 
of spirit, and became absorbed in it. 

“ Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eye 
observantly upon her, “ good day. The chamber, furnished 
bachelor-fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring 
for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of 
the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here,” 
pointing with his hand, “ near to the window of my establish¬ 
ment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been 
there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu ! ” 

They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of 
Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting, when 
the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the 
favour of a word. 

“ Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped 
with him to the door. 

Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost 
at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply 
attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and 
went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, 
and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble 
fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing. 

Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine¬ 
shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which 
he had directed his other company just before. It opened 
from a stinking little black courtyard, and was the general 
public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great 
number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the 
gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on 
one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to 



In the gloomy tiled-paved entry, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one 
knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. 















































































































































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


33 


his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently done ; a 
very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few 
seconds. He had no good-humour in his face, nor any openness 
of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man. 

“It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin 
slowly.” Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stem voice, to Mr. 
Lorry, as they began ascending the stairs. 

“Is he alone?” the latter whispered. 

“ Alone ! God help him who should be with him! ” said 
the other, in the same low voice. 

“ Is he always alone, then ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Of his own desire ? ” 

“Of his own necessity. As he was when I first saw him 
after they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, 
and, at my peril, be discreet — as he was then, so he is now.” 

“ He is greatly changed ? ” 

“ Changed! ” 

The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with 
his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer 
could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew 
heavier and heavier, as he and his two companions ascended 
higher and higher. 

Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more 
crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but at that 
time it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. 
Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high 
building — that is to say, the room or rooms within every door 
that opened on the general staircase — left its own heap of 
refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its 
own windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decom¬ 
position so engendered would have polluted the air, even if 
poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible 
impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost insup¬ 
portable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft 
of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturb¬ 
ance of mind, and to his young companion’s agitation, which 
became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped 
to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, 


34 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted 
seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to 
crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, 
were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within 
range, nearer or lower than the summits of the two great towers 
of Notre-Dame, had any promise on it of healthy life or whole' 
some aspirations. 

At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped 
for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a 
steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, 
before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine¬ 
shop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the 
side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked 
any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, 
and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over 
his shoulder, took out a key. 

“The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, 
surprised. 

“ Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. 

“You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman 
so retired ? ” 

“ I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge 
whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. 

“ Why?” 

“ Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he 
would be frightened—rave — tear himself to pieces — die — 
come to I know not what harm — if his door was left open.” 

“ Is it possible ! ” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. 

“Is it possible?” repeated Defarge bitterly. “Yes. And 
a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when 
many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but 
done — done, see you ! — under that sky there, every day. 
Long live the Devil. Let us go on.” 

This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that 
not a word of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But by 
this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face 
expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and 
terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word 
or two of reassurance. 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


35 


“ Courage, dear miss ! Courage ! Business ! The worst 
will be over in a moment; it is but passing the room door, and 
the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the 
relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin. Let our good 
friend here assist you on that side. That’s well, friend Defarge. 
Come, now. Business, business ! ” 

They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, 
and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt 
turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose 
heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and 
who were intently looking into the room to which the door 
belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hear¬ 
ing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and 
showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been 
drinking in the wine-shop. 

“ I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained 
Monsieur Defarge. “ Leave us, good boys; we have business 
here.” 

The three glided by, and went silently down. 

There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the 
keeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they 
were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little 
anger: — 

“ Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette 1 ” 

“ I show T him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.” 

“ Is that well 1 ” 

“ I think it is well.” 

“ Who are the few ? How do you choose them ? ” 

“I choose them as real men, of my name, — Jacques is my 
name, — to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough ; you 
are English; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, 
a little moment.” 

With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, 
and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising 
his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the door — 
evidently with no other object than to make a noise there. 
With the same intention, he drew the key across it, three or 
four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned 
it as heavily as he could. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked 
into the room and said something. A faint voice answered 
something. Little more than a single syllable could have been 
spoken on either side. 

He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to 
enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter’s 
waist, and held her; for he felt that she was sinking. 

“ A — a — a — business, business !” he urged, with a mois* 
ture that was not of business shining on his cheek. “ Come in, 
come in! ” 

“lam afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering. 

“Of it? What?” 

“ I mean of him. Of my father.” 

Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the 
beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm 
that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried 
her into the room. He set her down just within the door, and 
held her, clinging to him. 

Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the 
inside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All 
this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accom¬ 
paniment of noise as he could make. Finally, he walked across 
the room with a measured tread to where the window was. He 
stopped there, and faced round. 

The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, 
was dim and dark; for the window of dormer shape was in 
truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoist¬ 
ing up of stores from the street — unglazed, and closing up the 
middle in two pieces, like any other door of French construc¬ 
tion. To exclude the cold, one half of this door was fast closed, 
and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty 
portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was 
difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit 
alone could have slowly formed in any one the ability to do any 
work requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that 
kind was being done in the garret; for with his back towards 
the door, and his face towards the window, where the keeper of 
the wine-shop stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on 
a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


87 


CHAPTER VI 

THE SHOEMAKER 

“ Good day! ” said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the 
white head that bent low over the shoemaking. 

It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded 
to the salutation, as if it were at a distance : — 

“ Good day ! ” 

“You are still hard at work, I see? ” 

After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, 
and the voice replied, “Yes — I am working.” This time, a 
pair of haggard eyes had looked at the questioner, before the 
face had dropped again. 

The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was 
not the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and 
hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculi¬ 
arity was, that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It 
was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. 
So entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice, 
that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour, faded 
away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and suppressed it 
was, that it was like a voice underground. So expressive it 
was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveller, 
wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have 
remembered home and friends in such a tone before lying down 
to die. 

Some minutes of silent work had passed, and the haggard 
eyes had looked up again — not with any interest or curiosity, 
but with a dull mechanical perception, beforehand, that the spot 
where the only visitor they were aware of had stood was not 
yet empty. 

“I want,” said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from 
the shoemaker, “ to let in a little more light here. You can 
bear a little more ? ” 

The shoemaker stopped his work; looked, with a vacant ail 


38 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

of listening, at the floor on one side of him; then, similarly, 
at the floor on the other side of him; then, upward at the 
speaker. 

‘‘ What did you say ? ” 

“You can bear a little more light ? ” 

“ I must bear it, if you let it in.” (Laying the palest shadow 
of a stress upon the second word.) 

The opened half door was opened a little further, and secured 
at that angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the 
garret, and showed the workman, with an unfinished shoe upon 
his lap, pausing in his labour. His few common tools and 
various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his bench. He 
had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow 
face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and thinness 
of his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet 
dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had 
been really otherwise ; but they were naturally large, and looked 
unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, 
and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his 
old canvas frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters 
of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light and air, 
faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, that 
it would have been hard to say which was which. 

He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and 
the very bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a 
steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked 
at the figure before him, without first looking down on this side 
of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit of associat¬ 
ing place with sound; he never spoke, without first wandering 
in this manner, and forgetting to speak. 

“ Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day ? ” asked 
Defarge, motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward. 

“What did you say?” 

“ Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” 

“ I can’t say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don’t know.” 

But the question reminded him of his work, and he bent 
over it again. 

Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the 
door. When he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at 
seeing another figure, but the unsteady fingers of one of his 
hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it (his lips and his nails 
were of the same pale lead-colour), and then the hand dropped 
to his work, and he once more bent over the shoe. The look 
and the action had occupied but an instant. 

“ You have a visitor, you see,” said Monsieur Defarge. 

“ What did you say ? ” 

“ Here is a visitor.” 

The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a 
hand from his work. 

“ Come ! ” said Defarge. “ Here is monsieur, who knows a 
well-made shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you 
are working at. Take it, monsieur.” 

Mr. Lorry took it in his hand. 

“ Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker’s 
name.” 

There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker 
replied: — 

“ I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say ?” 

“ I said, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur’s 
information ? ” 

“ It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. It 
is in the present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a 
pattern in my hand.” He glanced at the shoe, with some little 
passing touch of pride. 

“ And the maker’s name 1 ” said Defarge. 

How that he had no work to hold,- he laid the knuckles of 
the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles 
of the left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a 
hand across his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, 
without a moment’s intermission. The task of recalling him 
from the vacancy into which he always sank when he had 
spoken was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, 
or endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the 
spirit of a fast-dying man. 

“ Did you ask me for my name ? ” 

“Assuredly I did.”. 

“ One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Is that all V* 

“One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” 

With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent 
to work again, until the silence was again broken. 

“You are not a shoemaker by trade ? ” said Mr. Lorry, 
looking steadfastly at him. 

His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have 
transferred the question to him; but as no help came from 
that quarter, they turned back on the questioner when they 
had sought the ground. 

“I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoe¬ 
maker by trade. I — I learnt it here. I taught myself. I 
asked leave to — ” 

He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured 
changes on his hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly 
back, at last, to the face from which they had wandered; when 
they rested on it, he started, and resumed, in the manner of a 
sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of last night. 

“ I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much dif¬ 
ficulty after a long while, and I have made shoes ever since.” 

As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from 
him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face: — 

“ Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me ? ” 

The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly 
at the questioner. 

“Monsieur Manette,” — Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon 
Defarge’s arm, — “ do you remember nothing of this man 1 
Look at him. Look at .me. Is there no old banker, no old 
business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your mind, 
Monsieur Manette 1 ” 

As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns 
at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long-obliterated marks of 
an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, 
gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had 
fallen on him. They were overclouded again, they were 
fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And so 
exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of 
her who had crept along the wall to a point where she could 
see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


41 


which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, 
if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but 
which were now extending towards him, trembling with eager¬ 
ness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast, and 
love it back to life and hope — so exactly was the expression 
repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young face, 
that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light, 
from him to her. 

Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the 
two, less and less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstrac¬ 
tion sought the ground and looked about him in the old way. 
Finally, with a deep long sigh, he took the shoe up, and 
resumed his work. 

“ Have you recognized him, monsieur 1 ” asked Defarge in a 
whisper. 

“ Yes ; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, 
but I have unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face 
that I once knew well. Hush! Let us draw further back. 
Hush! ” 

She had moved from the wall of the garret very near to 
the bench on which he sat. There was something awful in his 
unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand 
and touched him as he stooped over his labour. 

Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, 
like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work. 

It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the 
instrument in his hand for his shoemaker’s knife. It lay on 
that side of him which was not the side on which she stood. 
He had taken it up, and was stooping to work again, when his 
eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, and saw 
her face. The two spectators started forward, but she stayed 
them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his strik¬ 
ing at her with the knife, though they had. 

He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his 
lips began to form some words, though no sound proceeded 
from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his quick and 
laboured breathing, he was heard to say : — 

“ What is this ! ” 

With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two 



42 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


hands to her lips, and kissed them to him ; then clasped them 
on her breast, as if she laid his ruined head there. 

“ You are not the jailer’s daughter? ” 

She sighed, “No.” 

“ Who are you ? ” 

Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the 
bench beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon 
his arm. A strange thrill struck him when she did so, and 
visibly passed over his frame; he laid the knife down softly, 
as he sat staring at her. 

Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hur¬ 
riedly pushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing 
his hand by little and little, he took it up, and looked at it. 
In the midst of the action he went astray, and, with another 
deep sigh, fell to work at his shoemaking. 

But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand 
upon his shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three 
times, as if to be sure that it was really there, he laid down 
his work, put his hand to his neck, and took off a blackened 
string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He opened 
this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained a very little quan¬ 
tity of hair : not more than one or two long golden hairs, which 
he had, in some old day, wound off upon his finger. 

He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at 
it. “ It is the same. How can it be ! When was it! How 
was it! ” 

As the concentrating expression returned to his forehead, he 
seemed to become conscious that it was in hers too. He turned 
her full to the light, and looked at her. 

“ She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when 
I was summoned out—she had a fear of my going, though I 
had none — and when I was brought to the North Tower they 
found these upon my sleeve. ‘ You will leave me them ? They 
can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in 
the spirit.’ Those were the words I said. I remember them 
very well.” 

He formed this speech with his lips many times before he 
could utter it. But when he did find spoken words for it, 
they came to him coherently, though slowly. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


43 


“ How was this ? — Was it you ? ” 

Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her 
with a frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his 
grasp, and only said, in a low voice, “ I entreat you, good gen¬ 
tlemen, do not come near us, do not speak, do not move ! ” 

“ Hark !” he exclaimed. “ Whose voice was that?” 

His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up 
to his white hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as 
everything but his shoemaking did die out of him, and he 
refolded his little packet and tried to secure it in his breast; 
but he still looked at her, and gloomily shook his head. 

“Ho, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can’t be. 
See what the prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, 
this is not the face she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. 
No, no. She was — and He was — before the slow years of 
the North Tower—ages ago. What is your name, my gentle 
angel 1 ” 

Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon 
her knees before him, with her appealing hands upon his 
breast. 

“ Oh, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who 
my mother was, and who my father, and how I never knew 
their hard, hard history. But I cannot tell you at this time, 
and I cannot tell you here. All that I may tell you, here and 
now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss 
me, kiss me ! Oh, my dear, my dear ! ” 

His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which 
warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom 
shining on him. 

“ If you hear in my voice — I don’t know that it is so, but I 
hope it is — if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice 
that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for 
it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a 
beloved head that lay in your breast when you were young and 
free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a 
Home there is before us, where I will be true to you with all 
my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the 
remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart 
pined aw T ay, weep for it, weep for it! ” 


44 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her 
breast like a child. 

“ If when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, 
and that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go 
to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of 
your useful life laid waste, and of our native France so wicked 
to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, when I shall tell you 
of my name, and of my father who is living, and of my mother 
who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured 
father, and implore his pardon for having never for his sake 
striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the 
love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, 
weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me ! Good gentle¬ 
men, thank God ! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his 
sobs strike against my heart. Oh, see! Thank God for us, 
thank God! ” 

He had sunk in her arms, with his face dropped on her breast: 
a sight so touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and 
suffering which had gone before it, that the two beholders cov¬ 
ered their faces. 

When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and 
his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm 
that must follow all storms — emblem to humanity, of the rest 
and silence into which the storm called Life must hush at last 
— they came forward to raise the father and daughter from the 
ground. He had gradually drooped to the floor, and lay there 
in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that 
his head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over 
him curtained him from the light. 

“ If, without disturbing him,” she said, raising her hand to 
Mr. Lorry as he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of 
his nose, “ all could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so 
that, from the very door, he could be taken away — ” 

“ But consider. Is he fit for the journey? ” asked Mr. Lorry. 

“ More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so 
dreadful to him.” 

“ It is true,” said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and 
hear. “ More than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, 
best out of France. Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?” 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


45 


“ That’s business,” said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest 
notice his methodical manners; “and if business is to be done, I 
had better do it.” 

“Then be so kind,” urged Miss Manette, “as to leave us 
here. You see how composed he has become, and you cannot 
be afraid to leave him with me now. Why should you be 1 
If you will lock the door to secure us from interruption, I do 
not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, as quiet 
as you leave him. In any case, I will take care of him until 
you return, and then we will remove him straight.” 

Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this 
course, and in favour of one of them remaining. But as there 
were not only carriage and horses to be seen to, but travelling- 
papers ; and as time pressed, for the day was drawing to an end, 
it came at last to their hastily dividing the business that was 
necessary to be done, and hurrying away to do it. 

Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head 
down on the hard ground close at the father’s side, and watched 
him. The darkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay 
quiet, until a light gleamed through the chinks in the wall. 

Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the 
journey, and had brought with them, besides travelling-cloaks 
and wrappers, bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur 
Defarge put this provender, and the lamp he carried, on the 
shoemaker’s bench (there was nothing else in the garret but a 
pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and 
assisted him to his feet. 

No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his 
mind, in the scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew 
what had happened, whether he recollected what they had said 
to him, whether he knew that he was free, were questions which 
no sagacity could have solved. They tried speaking to him ; 
but he was so confused, and so very slow to answer, that they 
took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed for the time to tam¬ 
per with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner of occasion¬ 
ally clasping his head in his hands, that had not been seen in 
him before ; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his 
daughter’s voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke. 

In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under 


46 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


coercion, he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, 
and put on the cloak and other wrappings that they gave him 
to wear. He readily responded to his daughter’s drawing her 
arm through his, and took — and kept — her hand in both of 
his own. 

They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with 
the lamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had 
not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he 
stopped, and stared at the roof and round at the walls. 

“You remember the place, my father? You remember com 
ing up here ? ” 

“ What did you say ? ” 

But before she could repeat the question, he murmured an 
answer as if she had repeated it. 

“ Remember ? Ho, I don’t remember. It was so very long 
ago.” 

That he had no recollection whatever of his having been 
brought from his prison to that house was apparent to them. 
They heard him mutter, “ One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower; ” and when he looked about him, it evidently was for 
the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed him. On 
their reaching the courtyard, he instinctively altered his tread, 
as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was 
no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open 
street, he dropped his daughter’s hand and clasped his head 
again. 

No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible 
at any of the many windows; not even a chance passer-by was 
in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. 
Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge—- 
who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. 

The prisoner had got into the coach, and his daughter had 
followed him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step 
by his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the un¬ 
finished shoes. Madame Defarge immediately called to her 
husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of 
the lamplight, through the courtyard. She quickly brought 
them down and handed them in ;— and immediately afterwards 
leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing, 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


47 


Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word “ To the Bar¬ 
rier ! ” The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away 
under the feeble over-swinging lamps. 

Under the over-swinging lamps — swinging ever brighter in 
the better streets, and ever dimmer in the worse — and by 
lighted shops, gay crowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre 
doors, to one of the city gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the 
guard-house there. “Your papers, travellers!” “See here 
then, Monsieur the Officer,” said Defarge, getting down, and 
taking him gravely apart, “these are the papers of monsieur 
inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with 
him, at the —.” He dropped his voice, there was a flutter 
among the military lanterns, and one of them being handed into 
the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected with the 
arm looked, not an every day or an every night look, at mon¬ 
sieur with the white head. “It is well. Forward ! ” from the 
uniform. “ Adieu ! ” from Defarge. And so, under a short 
grove of feebler and feebler over-swinging lamps, out under the 
great grove of stars. 

Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights : some, so 
remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubt¬ 
ful whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in 
space where anything is suffered or done: the shadows of the 
night were broad and black. All through the cold and restless 
interval, until dawn, they once more whispered in the ears of 
Mr. Jarvis Lorry — sitting opposite the buried man who had 
been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers were for ever 
lost to him, and what were capable of restoration — the old 
inquiry : -— 

“ I hope you care to be recalled to life 1 ” 

And the old answer : — 

“ I can’t say.” 


18 


A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


BOOK THE SECOND —THE GOLDEN THREAD 


CHAPTER I 

FIVE YEARS LATER 

Tellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, 
even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It 
was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It 
was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute 
that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, 
proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incom¬ 
modiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those 
particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it 
were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was 
no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at 
more convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) 
wanted no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s 
wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks 
Brothers’ might; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven ! — 

Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on 
the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the House 
was much on a par with the Country; which did very often 
disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and 
customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only 
the more respectable. 

Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphant 
perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of 
idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into 
Tellson’s down two steps, and came to your senses in a miser¬ 
able little shop, with two little counters, wnere the oldest of 
men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while 
they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which 
were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


49 


which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and 
the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated 
your seeing “ the House,” you were put into a species of Con¬ 
demned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspent 
life, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and you 
could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money 
came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles 
of which flew up your nose and down your throat when they 
were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as 
if they were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was 
stowed away among the neighbouring cesspools, and evil com¬ 
munications corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your 
deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms made of kitchens and 
sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their parchments into 
the Banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of family papers 
went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great 
dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in 
the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters 
written to you by your old love, or by your little children, were 
but newly released from the horror of being ogled through the 
windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate 
brutality and ferocity worthy of Abyssinia or Ashantee. 

But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much 
in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all 
with Tellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and 
why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to 
Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlaw¬ 
ful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty 
shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse 
at Tellson’s door, w T ho made off with it, was put to Death; the 
coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three 
fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime were put to 
Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention 
— it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was 
exactly the reverse — but it cleared off (as to this world) the 
trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected 
with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson’s, in its day like 
greater places of business, its contemporaries, had taken so many 
lives, that, if the heads laid low before it had been ranged on 


50 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Temple Bar instead of being privately disposed of, they would 
probably have excluded what little light the ground-floor had, in 
a rather significant manner. 

Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tell¬ 
son’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When 
they took a young man into Tellson’s London house, they hid 
him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark 
place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and 
blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, 
spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches 
and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment. 

Outside Tellson’s — never by any means in it, unless called 
in — was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, 
who served as the live sign of the House. He was never absent 
during business hours, unless upon an errand, and then he was 
represented by his son : a grisly urchin of twelve, who was his 
express image. People understood that Tellson’s, in a stately 
way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The House had always tolerated 
some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted this 
person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the 
youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of dark¬ 
ness, in the easterly parish church of Houndsditch, he had 
received the added appellation of Jerry. 

The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging- 
sword Alley, Whitefriars; the time, half-past seven of the clock 
on a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred 
and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year 
of our Lord as Anna Dominoes : apparently under the impression 
that the Christian era dated from the invention Of a popular 
game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) 

Mr. Cruncher’s apartments were not in a savoury neighbour* 
hood, and were but two in number, even if a closet with a 
single pane of glass in it might be counted as one. But they 
were very decently kept. Early as it was, on the windy March 
morning, the room in which he lay abed was already scrubbed 
throughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged for 
breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white 
cloth was spread. 

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


51 


Harlequin at home. At first, he slept heavily, hut, by degree^ 
began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, 
with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to rib¬ 
bons. At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire 
exasperation: — 

“ Bust me, if she ain’t at it agin ! ” 

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her 
knees .in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show 
that she was the person referred to. 

“ What ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. 
“You’re at it agin, are you?” 

After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw 
a boot at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, 
and may introduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. 
Cruncher’s domestic economy, that, whereas he often came home 
after banking hours with clean boots, he often got Up next 
morning to find the same boots covered with clay. 

“What,” said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after 
missing his mark — “what are you up to, Aggerawayter?” 

“ I was only saying my prayers.” 

“ Saying your prayers. You’re a nice woman ! What do 
you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me ? ” 

“ I was not praying against you; I was praying for you.” 

“You weren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the 
liberty with. Here! your mother’s a nice woman, Young 
Jerry, going a praying agin your father’s prosperity. You’ve 
got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. You’ve got a reli¬ 
gious mother, you have, my boy — going and flopping herself 
down, and praying that the bread and butter may be snatched 
out of the mouth of her only child ! ” 

Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, 
and, turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying 
away of his personal board. 

“And what do you suppose, you conceited female,” said 
Mr. Cruncher, with unconscious inconsistency, “ that the worth 
of your prayers may be ? Name the price that you put your 
prayers at! ” 

“ They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth 
no more than that.” 


52 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Worth no more than that,” repeated Mr. Cruncher. 
“ They ain’t worth much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be 
prayed agin, I tell you. I can’t afford it. I’m not a going to 
be made unlucky by your sneaking. If you must go flopping 
yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and child, and 
not in opposition to ’em. If I had had any but a unnat’ral 
wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ral mother, I 
might have made some money last week, instead of being coun- 
terprayed and countermined and religiously circumwented into 
the worst of luck. Bu-u-ust me! ” said Mr. Cruncher, who 
all this time had been putting on his clothes, “ if I ain’t, what 
with piety and one blowed thing and another, been choused this 
last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a honest 
tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy, 
and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now 
and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a 
call. For I tell you,” here he addressed his wife once more, 
“ I won’t be gone agin, in this manner. I am as rickety as a 
hackney-coach, I’m as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained 
to that degree that I shouldn’t know, if it wasn’t for the pain 
in ’em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I’m none 
the better for it in pocket; and it’s my suspicion that you’ve 
been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the 
better for it in pocket, and I won’t put up with it, Aggeraway- 
ter, and what do you say now ! ” 

Growling, in addition, such phrases as, “Ah! yes! You’re 
religious, too. You wouldn’t put yourself in opposition to the 
interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!” 
and throwing off other sarcastic. sparks from the whirling 
grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to 
his boot-cleaning and his general preparations for business. 
In the mean time, his son, whose head was garnished with ten¬ 
derer spikes, and whose young eyes stood close by one another, 
as his father’s did, kept the required watch upon his mother. 
He greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals, by darting 
out of his sleeping-closet, where he made his toilet, with a sup¬ 
pressed cry of “You are going to flop, mother. — Halloa, 
father! ” and after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in again 
with an undutiful grin. 


A 'tALE OF TWO CITIES 


53 


Mr, Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he 
came to his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying 
Grace with particular animosity. 

“Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it 
agin ? ” 

His wife explained that she had merely “ asked a blessing.” 

“ Don’t do it! ” said Mr. Cruncher, looking about, as if he 
rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of 
his wife’s petitions. “I ain’t a going to be blest out of house 
and home. I won’t have my wittles blest off my table. Keep 
still! ” 

Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all 
night at a party which had taken anything but a convivial turn, 
Jerry Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than ate it, growl¬ 
ing over it like any four-footed inmate of a menagerie. 
Towards nine o’clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect, and, pre¬ 
senting as respectable and business-like an exterior as he could 
overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation of 
the day. 

It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite 
description of himself as “a honest tradesman.” His stock 
consisted of a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair 
cut down, which stool Young Jerry, walking at his father’s 
side, carried every morning to beneath the Banking-house win¬ 
dow that was nearest Temple Bar; where, with the addition 
of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned from any 
passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job- 
man’s feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this 
post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleet Street and 
the Temple, as the Bar itself — and was almost as ill-looking. 

Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch 
his three-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in 
to Tellson’s, Jerry took up his station on this windy March 
morning, with Young Jerry standing by him, when not engaged 
in making forays through the Bar, to inflict bodily and mental 
injuries of an acute description on passing boys who were small 
enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely 
like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic in 
Fleet Street, with their two heads as near to one another as 


54 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to 
a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not lessened by the 
accidental circumstance that the mature Jerry bit and spat out 
straw, while the twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as 
restlessly watchful of him as of everything else in Fleet Street. 

The head of one of the regular in-door messengers attached 
to Tellson’s establishment was put through the door and the 
word was given : — 

“ Porter wanted! ” 

“ Hooray, father ! Here’s an early job to begin with ! ” 
Having thus given his parent God-speed, Young Jerry seated 
himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the 
straw his father had been chewing, and cogitated. 

“Al-ways rusty ! His fingers is al-ways rusty ! ” muttered 
Young Jerry. “ Where does my father get all that iron-rust 
from ? He don’t get no iron-rust here ! ” 


CHAPTER II 

A SIGHT 

“You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt ? ” said one of the 
oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger. 

“ Ye-es, sir,” returned Jerry, in something of a dogged man¬ 
ner. “I do know the Bailey.” 

“Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry?” 

“ I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. 
Much better,” said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the 
establishment in question, “than I, as a honest tradesman, 
wish to know the Bailey.” 

“Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and 
show the doorkeeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then 
let you in.” 

“ Into the court, sir ? ” 

“ Into the court.” 

Mr. Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one an¬ 
other, and to interchange the inquiry, “ What do you think of 
this?” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 55 

“ Am I to wait in the court, sir ? ” he asked, as the result of 
that conference. 

“ I am going to tell you. The doorkeeper will pass the note 
to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract 
Mr. Lorry’s attention, and show him where you stand. Then 
what you have to do is to remain there until he wants you.” 

“Is that all, sir?” 

“ That’s all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This 
is to tell him you are there.” 

As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the 
note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he 
came to the blotting-paper stage, remarked : — 

“ I suppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning ? ” 

“ Treason ! ” 

“ That’s quartering,” said Jerry. “ Barbarous ! ” 

“ It is the law,” remarked the ancient clerk, turning his sur¬ 
prised spectacles upon him. “It is the law.” 

“ It’s hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard 
enough to kill him, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.” 

“ Not at all,” returned the ancient clerk. “ Speak well of 
the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, 
and leave the law to take care of itself. I give you that 
advice.” 

“ It’s the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,” 
said Jerry. “ I leave you to judge what a damp way of earn¬ 
ing a living mine is.” 

“Well, well,” said the old clerk, “we all have our various 
ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, 
and some of us have dry ways. Here is the letter. Go along.” 

Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less 
internal deference than he made an outward show of, “ You are 
a lean old one, too,” made his bow, informed his son, in pass¬ 
ing, of his destination, and went his way. 

They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside 
Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since 
attached to it. But the jail was a vile place, in which most 
kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and where dire 
diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and 
sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief 


56 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more 
than once happened, that the judge in the black cap pronounced 
his own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, and even died before 
him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of 
deadly inn-yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, 
in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world; 
traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, 
and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and 
so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, 
too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a pun¬ 
ishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for the 
whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising 
and softening to behold in action ; also, for extensive transac¬ 
tions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, 
systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes 
that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old 
Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, 
that “ Whatever is, is right; ” an aphorism that would be as 
final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, 
that nothing that ever was, was wrong. 

Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and 
down this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accus¬ 
tomed to make his way quietly, the messenger found out the 
door he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in it. 
For people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, just as 
they paid to see the play in Bedlam — only the former enter¬ 
tainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey 
doors were well guarded — except, indeed, the social doors by 
which the criminals got there, and those were always left wide 
open. 

After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on 
its hinges a very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to 
squeeze himself into court. 

“ What’s on ? ” he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found 
himself next to. 

“Nothing yet.” 

“ What’s coming on ? ” 

“ The Treason case.” 

“ The quartering one, eh ? * 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


57 


u Ah ! ” returned the man, with a relish ; “ he’ll be drawn 
on a hurdle to be half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down 
and sliced before his own face, and then his inside will be taken 
out and burnt while he looks on, and then his head will be 
chopped off, and he’ll be cut into quarters. That’s the sen¬ 
tence.” 

“If he’s found Guilty, you mean to say?” Jerry added, by 
way of proviso. 

“ Oh ! they’ll find him Guilty,” said the other. “ Don’t you 
be afraid of that.” 

Mr. Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the doorkeeper, 
whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in 
his hand. Mr. Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in 
wigs, not far from a wigged gentleman, the prisoner’s counsel, 
who had a great bundle of papers before him, and nearly oppo¬ 
site another wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, 
whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then 
or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the 
court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and 
signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, 
who had stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded, and 
sat down again. 

“ What’s he got to do with the case % ” asked the man he had 
spoken with. 

“ Blest if I know,” said Jerry. 

“ What have you got to do with it, then, if a person may 
inquire % ” 

“ Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry. 

The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and 
settling-down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, 
the dock became the central point of interest. Two jailers, 
who had been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was 
brought in, and put to the bar. 

Everybody present, except the one-wigged gentleman who 
looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in 
the place rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eagei 
faces strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; 
spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him ; 
people on the floor of the court laid their hands on the shoul- 




58 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody’s 
cost, to a view of him — stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood 
upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous 
among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of 
Newgate, Jerry stood ; aiming at the pris'oner the beery breath 
of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it 
to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and 
coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke 
upon the great windows behind him in an impure mist and 
rain. 

The object of all this staring and blaring was a young man 
of about five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a 
sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that of 
a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in black, or very 
dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered 
in a ribbon at the back of his neck, more to be out of his way 
than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express 
itself through any covering of the body, so the : paleness which 
his situation engendered came through the brown upon his 
cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was 
otherwise quite self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood 
quiet. 

The sort of interest with which this man was stared and 
breathed at was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he 
stood in peril of a less horrible sentence, — had there been a 
chance of any one of its savage details being spared, — by just 
so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that 
was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight; 
the immortal creature that was to be so butchered and torn 
asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various 
spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts 
and powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, 
Ogreish. 

Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded 
Not Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite 
jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, 
illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our . Lord the King, 
by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers 
means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


59 


against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth ; that 
was to say, by coming and going between the dominions of our 
said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the 
said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and 
otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis 
what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, 
had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. 
This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more 
spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satis¬ 
faction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that 
the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Dar- 
nay, stood there before him upon his trial; that the jury were 
swearing in; and that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready 
to speak. 

The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being men¬ 
tally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, 
neither flinched from the situation, nor assumed any theatrical 
air in it. He was quiet and attentive; watched the opening 
proceedings with a grave interest; and stood with his hands 
resting on the slab of wood before him, so composedly, that they 
had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was strewn. 
The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with vine¬ 
gar, as a precaution against jail air and jail fever. 

Over the prisoner’s head there was a mirror, to throw the 
light down upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched 
had been reflected in it, and had passed from its surface and 
this earth’s together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner that 
abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have 
rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up 
its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace 
for which it had been reserved may have struck the prisoner’s 
mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position making him 
conscious of a bar of light across his face, he looked up, and 
when he saw the glass his face flushed, and his right hand 
pushed the herbs away. 

It happened that the action turned his face to that side of 
the court which was on his left. About on a level with his 
eyes, there sat, in that corner of the Judge’s bench, two per¬ 
sons upon whom his look immediately rested; so immediately, 


60 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and so much to the changing of his aspect, that all the eyes 
that were turned upon him, turned to them. 

The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little 
more than twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her 
father; a man of a very remarkable appearance in respect of 
the absolute whiteness of his hair, and a certain indescribable 
intensity of face: not of an active kind, but pondering and 
self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he 
looked as if he were old; but, when it was stirred and broken 
up — as it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his 
daughter — he became a handsome man, not past the prime 
of life. 

His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, 
as she sat by him, and the other pressed upon it. She had 
drawn close to him, in her dread of the scene, and in her pity 
for the prisoner. Her forehead had been strikingly expressive 
of an engrossing terror and compassion that saw nothing but 
the peril of the accused. This had been so very noticeable, so 
very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who had 
had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper 
went about, “Who are they?” 

Jerry the messenger, who had made his own observations in 
his own manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his 
fingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they 
were. The crowd about him had pressed and passed the 
- inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and from him it had been 
more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got to Jerry: — 

“ Witnesses.” 

“ For which side ? ” 

“ Against.” 

“ Against what side ? ” 

“ The prisoner’s.” 

The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, 
recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at 
the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General 
rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the nails into 
the scaffold. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


61 


CHAPTER III 

A DISAPPOINTMENT 

Mr. Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the 
prisoner before them, though young in years, was old in the trea¬ 
sonable practices which claimed the forfeit of his life. That 
this correspondence with the public enemy was not a corre¬ 
spondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or even of last year, or of 
the year before. That, it was certain the prisoner had, for 
longer than that, been in the habit of passing and repassing 
between France and England, on secret business of which he 
could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature 
of traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the 
real wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained 
undiscovered. That Providence, however, had put it into the 
heart of a person who was beyond fear and beyond reproach, 
to ferret out the nature of the prisoner’s schemes, and, struck 
with horror, to disclose them to his Majesty’s Chief Secretary 
of State and most honourable Privy Council. That, this 
patriot would be produced before them. That, his position 
and attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had been 
the prisoner’s friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil 
hour detecting his infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor 
he could no longer cherish in his bosom, on the sacred altar of 
his country. That, if statues were decreed in Britain, as in 
ancient Greece and Rome, to public benefactors, this shining 
citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as they were not 
so decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue, 
as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he 
well knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of 
their tongues; whereat the jury’s countenances displayed a 
guilty consciousness that they knew nothing about the pas¬ 
sages), was in a manner contagious; more especially the 
bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country. That, 
the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable wit¬ 
ness for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was 
an honour, had communicated itself to the prisoner’s servant, 


62 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and had engendered in him a holy determination to examine 
his master’s table-drawers and pockets, and secrete his papers. 
That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to hear some 
disparagement attempted of this admirable servant; but that, 
in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. Attorney-Gen¬ 
eral’s) brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his 
(Mr. Attorney-General’s) father and mother. That, he called 
with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That, 
the evidence of these two witnesses, coupled with the docu¬ 
ments of their discovering that would be produced, would 
show the prisoner to have been furnished with lists of his 
Majesty’s forces, and of their disposition and preparation, 
both by sea and land, and would leave no doubt that he had 
habitually conveyed such information to a hostile power. 
That, these lists could not be proved to be in the prisoner’s 
handwriting ; but that it was all the same; that, indeed, it 
was rather the better for the prosecution, as showing the pris¬ 
oner to be artful in his precautions. That, the proof would 
go back five years, and would show the prisoner already 
engaged in these pernicious missions, within a few w r eeks before 
the date of the very first action fought between the British 
troops and the Americans. That, for these reasons, the jury, 
being a loyal jury (as he knew they were), and being a respon¬ 
sible jury (as they knew they were), must positively find the 
prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether they liked 
it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their 
pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives 
laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could 
endure the notion of their children laying their heads upon 
their pillows; in short, .that there never more could be, for 
them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless 
the prisoner’s head was taken off. That head Mr. Attorney- 
General concluded by demanding of them, in the name of every¬ 
thing he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the 
faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the 
prisoner as good as dead and gone. 

When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the 
court as if a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about 
the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become. 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 63 

When it toned down again, the unimpeachable patriot appeared 
in the witness-box. 

Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, exam¬ 
ined the patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story 
of his pure soul was exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had 
described it to be — perhaps, if it had a fault, a little too exactly. 
Having released his noble bosom of its burden, he would have 
modestly withdrawn himself, but that the wigged gentleman 
with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr. Lorry, begged 
to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting 
opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court. 

Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base 
insinuation. What did he live upon ? His property. Where 
was his property? He didn’t precisely remember where it 
was. What was it ? No business of anybody’s. Had he in¬ 
herited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. 
Very distant ? Rather. Ever been in prison ? Certainly not. 
Never in a debtors’ prison ? Didn’t see what that had to do 
with it. Never in a debtors’ prison ?, — Come, once again. 
Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. 
Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. 
Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. 
Ever kicked down stairs ? Decidedly not; once received a 
kick on the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own 
accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at dice ? Some¬ 
thing to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who com¬ 
mitted the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true ? 
Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever 
live by play ? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever 
borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him? No. 
Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a very slight 
one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets 9 
No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. 
Knew no more about the lists? No. Had not procured them 
himself, for instance ? No. Expect to get anything by this 
evidence? No. Not in regular government pay and employ¬ 
ment, to lay traps ? Oh, dear no. Or to do anything ? Oh, 
dear no. Swear that ? Over and over again. No motives 
but motives of sheer patriotism ? None whatever. 


64 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the 
case at a great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, 
in good faith and simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the 
prisoner, aboard the Calais packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, 
and the prisoner had engaged him. He had not asked the 
prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of charity — never 
thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of the 
prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In 
arranging his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists 
to these in the prisoner’s pockets, over and over again. He 
had taken these lists from the drawer of the prisoner’s desk. 
He had not put them there first. He had seen the prisoner 
show these identical lists to French gentlemen at Calais, and 
similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and Boulogne. 
He loved his country, and couldn’t bear it, and had given 
information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver 
teapot; he had been maligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it 
turned out to be only a plated one. He had known the last 
witness seven or eight -years; that was merely a coincidence. 
He didn’t call it a particularly curious coincidence; most coin¬ 
cidences were curious. Neither did he call it a curious coinci¬ 
dence that true patriotism was his only motive too. He was a 
true Briton, and hoped there were many like him. 

The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called 
Mr. Jarvis Lorry. 

‘‘Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s bank ? ” 

“ I am.” 

“ On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven 
hundred and seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel 
between London and Dover by the mail ? ” 

“ It did.” 

“ Were there any other passengers in the mail?” 

“ Two.” 

“ Did they alight on the road in the course of the night ? ” 

“ They did.” 

“ Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those 
two passengers ? ” 

“ I cannot undertake to say that he was.” 

“ Does he resemble either of these two passengers ? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


65 


“ Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and 
we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.” 

“ Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him 
wrapped up as those two passengers were, is there anything in 
his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of 
them ? ” 

“No.” 

“You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of 
them % ” 

“ No.” 

“So at least you say he may have been one of them ? ” 

“ Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been 
— like myself — timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has 
not a timorous air.” 

“ Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry 1 ” 

“ I certainly have seen that.” 

“ Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you 
seen him, to your certain knowledge, before ? ” 

“ I have.” 

“When?” 

“ I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, 
at Calais, the prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which 
I returned, and made the voyage with me.” 

“ At what hoar did he come on board ? ” 

“ At a little after midnight.” 

“ In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who 
came on board at that untimely hour ? ” 

“ He happened to be the only one.” 

“Never mind about ‘happening,’ Mr. Lorry. He was the 
only passenger who came on board in the dead of the night ?” 
“ He was.” 

“ Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any com¬ 
panion ? ” 

“ With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are 
here.” 

“They are here. Had you any conversation with the 
prisoner ? ” 

“ Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long 
and rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore.” 


66 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Miss Manette! ” 

The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, 
and were now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her 
father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm. 

“ Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.” 

To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and 
beauty, was far more trying to the accused than to be confronted 
with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on 
the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked 
on could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His 
hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs before him into imag¬ 
inary beds of flowers in a garden ; and his efforts to control and 
steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour rushed 
to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again. 

“ Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Where ? ” 

“ On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and 
on the same occasion.” 

“You are the young lady just now referred to ? ” 

“ Oh ! most unhappily, I am ! ” 

The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less 
musical voice of the Judge, as he said, something fiercely: 
“ Answer the questions put to you, and make no remark upon 
them.” 

“ Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner 
on that passage across the Channel ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Recall it.” 

In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began : —- 

“When the gentleman came on board — ” 

“Do you mean the prisoner?” inquired the Judge, knitting 
his brows. 

“ Yes, my Lord.” 

“ Then say the prisoner.” 

“When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my 
father,” turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, 
“ was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My 
father was so reduced, that I was afraid to take him out of the air, 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


67 


and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, 
and I sat on the deck at his side to take care of him. There 
were no other passengers that night, but we four. The prisoner 
was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could 
shelter my father from the wind and weather better than I had 
done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding 
how the wind would set when we were out of the harbour. He 
did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for 
my father’s state, and I am sure he felt it. That was the 
manner of our beginning to speak together.” 

“ Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on 
board alone ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ How many were with him ? ” 

“ Two French gentlemen.” 

“ Had they conferred together 1 ” 

“ They had conferred together until the last moment, when 
it w r as necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their 
boat.” 

“ Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to 
these lists 1 ” 

“ Some papers had been handed about among them, but I 
don’t know what papers.” 

“ Like these in shape and size ? ” 

“Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood 
whispering very near to me; because they stood at the top of 
the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging 
there; it was a dull lamp, and they spoke very low, and I did 
not hear what they said, and saw only that they looked at 
papers.” 

“Now, to the prisoner’s conversation, Miss Manette.” 

“ The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me — 
which arose out of my helpless situation — as he was kind, and 
good, and useful to my father. I hope,” bursting into tears, 
“ I may not repay him by doing him harm to-day.” 

Buzzing from the blue-flies. 

“ Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand 
that you give the evidence which it is your duty to give — 
which you must give — and which you cannot escape from 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


giving — with great unwillingness, he is the only person pres¬ 
ent in that condition. Please to go on.” 

“ He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate 
and difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and 
that he was therefore travelling under an assumed name. He 
said that his business had, within a few days, taken him to 
France, and might, at intervals, take him backwards and for¬ 
wards between France and England for a long time to come.” 

“ Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette ? Be 
particular.” 

“ He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and 
he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and fool¬ 
ish one on England’s part. He added in a jesting way, that 
perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name 
in history as George the Third. But there was no harm in his 
way of saying this : it was said laughingly, and to beguile the 
time.” 

Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief 
actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed 
will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead 
was painfully anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, 
in the pauses when she stopped for the Judge to write it down, 
watched its effect upon the counsel for and against. Among 
the lookers-on there was the same expression in all quarters of 
the court; insomuch, that a great majority of the foreheads 
there might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, when the 
Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous 
heresy about George Washington. 

Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he 
deemed it necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call 
the young lady’s father, Doctor Manette. Who was called 
accordingly. 

“Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever 
seen him before ? ” 

“ Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some 
three years, or three years and a half ago.” 

“ Qan you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the 
packet, or speak to his conversation with your daughter 1 ” 

“ Sir, I can do neither.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 69 

“ Is there any particular and special reason for your being 
unable to do either % ” 

He answered, in a low voice, “ There is.” 

“ Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprison¬ 
ment, without trial, or even accusation, in your native country, 
Doctor Manette h ” 

He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, “ A long 
imprisonment.” 

“ Were you newly released on the occasion in question ? ” 

“ They tell me so.” 

“ Have you no remembrance of the occasion ? ” 

“None. My mind is a blank, from some time — I cannot 
even say what time — when I employed myself, in my captivity, 
in making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in 
London with my dear daughter here. She had become familiar 
to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties ; but I am 
quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. I have 
no remembrance of the process.” 

Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter 
sat down together. 

A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object 
in hand being, to show that the prisoner went down, with some 
fellow-plotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday 
night in November five years ago, and got out of the mail in 
the night, as a blind, at a place where he did not remain, but 
from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more, to a 
garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a wit¬ 
ness was called to identify him as having been at the precise 
time required, in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison 
and dockyard town, waiting for another person. The prisoner’s 
counsel was cross-examining this witness with no result, except 
that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when 
the wigged gentleman, who had all this time been looking at the 
ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of 
paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening this 
piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great 
attention and curiosity at the prisoner. 

“You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner ? ” 

The witness was quite sure. 


TO 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?” 

Not so like (the witness said), as that he could be mistaken. 

“ Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there, 51 
pointing to him who had tossed the paper over, “ and then look 
well upon the prisoner. How say you ? Are they very like 
each other ? 55 

Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless 
and slovenly, if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each 
other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, 
when they were thus brought into compaiison. My Lord being 
prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no 
very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remark¬ 
able. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner’s counsel), 
whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned 
friend) for treason ? But Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no; 
but he would ask the witness to tell 'him whether what hap¬ 
pened once, might happen twice; whether he would have been 
so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness 
sooner; whether he would be so confident, having seen it; and 
more. The upshot of which was, to smash this witness like 
a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to useless 
lumber. 

Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust 
off his fingers, in his following of the evidence. He had now 
to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the 
jury like a compact suit of clothes; showing them how the 
patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing traf¬ 
ficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth 
since accursed Judas — which he certainly did look rather like. 
How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and 
was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and 
false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because 
some family affairs in France, he being of French extraction, 
did require his making those passages across the Channel — 
though what those affairs were, a consideration for others who 
were near and dear to him forbade him, even for his life, to dis¬ 
close. How the evidence that had been warped and wrested 
from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they had wit¬ 
nessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


71 


gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young 
gentleman and young lady so thrown together, — with the 
exception of that reference to George Washington, which was 
altogether too extravagant and impossible, to be regarded in any 
other light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weak¬ 
ness in the government to break down in this attempt to practise 
for popularity on the lowest national antipathies and fears, and 
therefore Mr. Attorney-General had made the most of it; how, 
nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous 
character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of 
which the State Trials of this country were full. But there 
my Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not been 
true), saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer 
those allusions. 

Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher 
had next to attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole 
suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; 
showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better 
than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times 
worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning the suit of 
clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decid¬ 
edly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the 
prisoner. 

And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies 
swarmed again. 

Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the 
court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this 
excitement. While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his 
papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and 
from time to tim& glanced anxiously at the jury ; while all the 
spectators moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew; 
while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly 
paced up and down the platform, not unattended by a suspicion 
in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish ; this 
one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his 
untidy wig put on just as it had happened to light on his head 
after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the 
ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless 
in his demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but so 


72 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the 
prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, when they were 
compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookers- 
on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would 
hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher 
made the observation to his next neighbour, and added, “ I’d 
hold half a guinea that he don’t get no law-work to do. Don’t 
look like the sort of one to get any, do he 1 ” 

Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene 
than he appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s 
head dropped upon her father’s breast, he was the first to see 
it, and to say audibly, “ Officer ! look to that young lady. 
Help the gentleman to take her out. Don’t you see she will 
fall! ” 

There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, 
and much sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a 
great distress to him to have the days of his imprisonment 
recalled. He had shown strong internal agitation when he was 
questioned, and that pondering or brooding look, which made 
him old, had been upon him, like a heavy cloud, ever since. 
As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a 
moment, spoke, through their foreman. 

They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord 
(perhaps with George Washington on his mind) showed some 
surprise that they were not agreed, but signified his pleasure 
that they should retire under watch and ward, and retired him¬ 
self. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in the court 
were now being lighted. It began to be rumoured that the 
jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to 
get refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the 
dock, and sat down. 

Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her 
father went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry, who, 
in the slackened interest, could easily get near him. 

“Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But 
keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury 
come in. Don’t be a moment behind them, for I want you to 
take the verdict back to the bank. You are the quickest messen¬ 
ger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long before I can.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


73 


Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled 
it in acknowledgment of this communication and‘a shilling. 
Mr. Carton came up at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on 
the arm. 

“ How is the young lady ? ” 

“ She is greatly distressed ; but her father is comforting her, 
and she feels the better for being out of court.” 

“I’ll tell the prisoner so. It won’t do for a respectable 
bank-gentleman like you to be seen speaking to him publicly, 
you know.” 

Mr. Lorry reddened, as if he were conscious of having debated 
the point in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the out¬ 
side of the bar. The way out of court lay in that direction, 
and Jerry followed him, all eyes, ears, and spikes. 

“ Mr. Darnay ! ” 

The prisoner came forward directly. 

“ You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss 
Manette. She will do very well. You have seen the worst of 
her agitation.” 

“ I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you 
tell her so for me, with my fervent acknowledgments ? ” 

“Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it.” 

Mr. Carton’s manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. 
He stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow 
against the bar. 

“ I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks.” 

“What,” said Carton, still only half turned towards him, 
u do you expect, Mr. Darnay ? ” 

“ The worst.” 

“ It’s the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I 
think their withdrawing is in your favour.” 

Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry 
heard no more ; but left them — so like each other in feature, 
so unlike each other in manner — standing side by side, both 
reflected in the glass above them. 

An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and» 
rascal-crowded passages below, even though assisted off with 
mutton-pies and ale. The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably 
seated on a form after taking that refection, had dropped into 


74 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide of people set* 
ting up the stairs that led to the court carried him along with 
them. 

“ Jerry ! Jerry ! ” Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door 
when he got there. 

“ Here, sir! It’s a fight to get back again. Here I am, 
sir! ” 

Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. “ Quick ! 
Have you got it ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Hastily written on the paper was the word “Acquitted.” 

“ If you had sent the message, ‘ Recalled to life,’ again,” mut¬ 
tered Jerry, as he turned, “I should have known what you 
meant, this time.” 

He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, 
anything else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for the 
crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took him 
off his legs, and a loud buzz swept into the street as if the 
baffled blue-flies were dispersing in search of other carrion. 


CHAPTER IY 

CONGRATULATORY 

From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sedi¬ 
ment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day was 
straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette his daughter, 
Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defence, and its counsel Mr. 
Stryver, stood gathered around Mr. Charles Darnay—just 
released — congratulating him on his escape from death. 

It would have been difficult by a far brighter light to recog¬ 
nise in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bear¬ 
ing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could 
have looked at him twice, without looking again : even though 
the opportunity of observation had not extended to the mourn¬ 
ful cadence of his low grave voice, and to the abstraction that 
overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent reason. While 
one external cause, and that a reference to his long lingering 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


75 


agony, would always — as on the trial — evoke this condition 
from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise 
of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to 
those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow 
of the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when 
the substance was three hundred miles away. 

Only his daughter had the power of charming this black 
brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that 
united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present 
beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of 
her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influ¬ 
ence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for 
she could recall some occasions on which her power had 
failed; but they were few and slight, and she believed them 
over. 

Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, 
and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked, 
Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking 
twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and 
free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of 
shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies 
and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way 
up in life. 

He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring 
himself at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the 
innocent Mr. Lorry clean out of the group: “I am glad to 
have brought you oft' with honour, Mr. Darnay. It was an 
infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less likely 
to succeed, on that account.” 

“You have laid me under an obligation to you for life 
— in two senses,” said his late client, taking his hand. 

“ I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay ; and my best is 
as good as another man’s, I believe.” 

It clearly being incumbent on somebody to say, “Much 
better,” Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, 
but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again. 

“You think so?” said Mr. Stryver. “Well! you have 
been present all day, and you ought to know. You are a man 
of business, too.” 


76 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“And as such,” quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned 
in the law had now shouldered back into the group, just as he 
had previously shouldered him out of it — “as such, I will 
appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up this conference and order 
us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had 
a terrible day, and we are worn out.” 

“ Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver; “ I have a 
night’s work to do yet. Speak for yourself.” 

“I speak for myself,” answered Mr. Lorry, “and for Mr 
Darnay, and for Miss Lucie, and — Miss Lucie, do you not 
think I may speak for us all ? ” He asked her the question 
pointedly, and with a glance at her father. 

His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious 
look at Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of 
dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear. With this 
strange expression on him his thoughts had wandered away. 

“ My father,” said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. 

He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. 

“ Shall we go home, my father ? ” 

With a long breath, he answered, “ Yes.” 

The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under 
the impression — which he himself had originated — that he 
would not be released that night. The lights were nearly all 
extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being closed 
with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until 
to-morrow morning’s interest of gallows, pillory, whipping-post, 
and branding-iron, should re-people it. Walking between her 
father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into the open air. 
A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter 
departed in it. 

Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his 
way back to the robing-room. Another person who had not 
joined the group, or interchanged a word with any one of them, 
but who had been leaning against the wall where its shadov 
was darkest, had silently strolled out after the rest, and had 
looked on until the coach drove away. He now stepped up to 
where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement. 

“ So, Mr. Lorry ! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay 
now?” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


77 


Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part 
in the day’s proceedings; nobody had known of it. He was 
unrobed, and was none the better for it in appearance. 

“ If y°u knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, 
when the business mind is divided between good-natured im¬ 
pulse and business appearances, you would be amused, Mr, 
Darnay,” 

Mr. Lorry reddened, and said warmly, “ You have mentioned 
that before, sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are 
not our own masters. We have to think of the House more 
than ourselves.” 

“/ know, I know,” rejoined Mr. Carton carelessly. “Don’t 
be nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no 
doubt; better, I dare say.” 

“And indeed, sir,” pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, “I 
really don’t know what you have to do with the matter. If 
you’ll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, I 
really don’t know that it is your business.” 

“ Business ! Bless you, / have no business,” said Mr. 
Carton. 

“ It is a pity you have not, sir.” 

“ I think so too.” 

“ If you had,” pursued Mr. Lorry, “ perhaps you would 
attend to it.” 

“ Lord love you, no ! — I shouldn’t,” said Mr. Carton. 

“ Well, sir! ” cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his 
indifference, “ business is a very good thing, and a very respect¬ 
able thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its 
silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay, as a young gentleman 
of generosity, knows how to make allowance for that circum¬ 
stance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir! I hope 
you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy 
life. — Chair there! ” 

Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the 
barrister, Mr. Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off 
to Tellson’s. Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did not 
appear to be quite sober, laughed then, and turned to 
Darnay: — 

“ This is a strange chance that throws you and ine together. 


78 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


This must be a strange night to you, standing alone here with 
your counterpart on these street stones ? ” 

“ I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “ to belong 
to this world again.” 

“ I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were 
pretty far advanced on your way to another. You speak 
faintly.” 

“ I begin to think I am faint.” 

“ Then why the devil don’t you dine ? I dined, myself, 
while those numskulls were deliberating which world you 
should belong to — this, or some other. Let me show you the 
nearest tavern to dine well at.” 

Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Lud- 
gate Hill to Fleet Street, and so, up a covered way, into a tav¬ 
ern. Here, they were shown into a little room, where Charles 
Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain 
dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to him at 
the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and 
his fully half-insolent manner upon him. 

“ Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme 
again, Mr. Darnay?” 

“ I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I 
am so far mended as to feel that.” 

“ It must be an immense satisfaction ! ” 

He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was 
a large one. 

“As to me, the greatest desire I have is to forget that I 
belong to it. It has no good in it for me — except wine like 
this — nor I for it. So we are not much alike in that par¬ 
ticular. Indeed, I begin to think we are not much alike in 
any particular, you and I.” 

Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being 
there with this Double of coarse deportment to be like a dream, 
Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer ; finally, answered 
not at all. 

“ Now your dinner is done,” Carton presently said, “ why 
don’t you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don’t you give your 
£oast ? ” 

“ What health I What toast ? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


79 


“Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it 
must be, I’ll swear it’s there.” 

“ Miss Manette, then ! ” 

“ Miss Manette, then ! ” 

Looking his companion full in his face while he drank the 
toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, 
where it shivered to pieces; then rang the bell, and ordered 
in another. 

“ That’s a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, 
Mr. Darnay ! ” he said, filling his new goblet. 

A slight frown and a laconic “ Yes,” were the answer. 

“ That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by ! 
How does it feel ? Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be 
the object of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay ? ” 

Again Darnay answered not a word. 

“ She was mightily pleased to have your message, when 1 
gave it her. Not that she showed she was pleased, but I sup¬ 
pose she was.” 

The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that 
this disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted 
him in the strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that 
point, and thanked him for it. 

“ I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,” was the care¬ 
less rejoinder. “ It was nothing to do, in the first place; and 
I don’t know why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me 
ask you a question.” 

“ Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.” 

“ Do you think I particularly like you ? ” 

“ Really, Mr. Carton,” returned the other, oddly disconcerted, 
“ I have not asked myself the question.” 

“But ask yourself the question now.” 

“You have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.’ ; 

“ 1 don’t think I do,” said Carton. '* I begin to have a very 
good opinion of your understanding.” 

“ Nevertheless,” pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, 
“ there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the 
reckoning, and our parting without ill-blood on either side.” 

Carton rejoining, “ Nothing in life ! ” Darnay rang. “ Do 
you call the whole reckoning % ” said Carton. On his answer- 


80 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ing in the affirmative, “ Then bring me another pint of this 
same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at ten.” 

The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him 
good night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose too with 
something of a threat or defiance in his manner, and said, “ A 
last word, Mr. Darnay : you think I am drunk ? 

“ I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.” 

“Think? You know I have been drinking.” 

“ Since I must say so, I know it.” 

“ Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed 
drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth 
cares for me.” 

“Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents 
.better.” 

“ May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don’t let your 
sober face elate you, however; you don’t know what it may 
come to. Good night! ” 

When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, 
went to a glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed him¬ 
self minutely in it. 

“Do you particularly like the man?” he muttered, at his 
own image; “why should you particularly like a man who 
resembles you ? There is nothing in you to like; you know 
that. Ah, confound you ! What a change you have made in 
yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows 
you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have 
been! Change places with him, and would you have been 
looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by 
that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in 
plain words ! You hate the fellow.” 

He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all 
in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hail 
straggling over the table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle 
dripping down upon him. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


81 


CHAPTER V 

THE JACKAL 

Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So 
7ery great is the improvement Time has brought about in such 
habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and 
punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night, 
without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, 
would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The 
learned profession of the Law was certainly not behind any 
other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities ; neither 
was Mr. Stry ver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and 
lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any 
more than in the dryer parts of the legal race. 

A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. 
Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of 
the ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had 
now to summon their favourite, specially, to their longing arms; 
and shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief 
Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, the florid countenance of 
Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of 
wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from 
among a rank garden-full of flaring companions. 

It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver 
was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, 
he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap 
of statements, which is among the most striking and necessary 
of the advocate’s accomplishments. But a remarkable improve¬ 
ment came upon him as to this. The more business he got, the 
greater his poAver seemed to grow of getting at its pith and 
marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with Syd¬ 
ney Carton, he always had his points at his fingers’ ends in the 
morning. 

Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was 
Stryver’s great ally. What the two drank together, between 
Hilary Term and Michaelmas, might have floated a king’s ship. 
Stryver never had a case in hand, anywhere, but Carton was 


82 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


there, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ceiling of the 
court; they went the same Circuit, and even there they prolonged 
their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was rumoured 
to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily 
to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get 
about, among such as were interested in the matter, that 
although Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he was an 
amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service to 
Stryver in that humble capacity. 

“ Ten o’clock, sir,” said the man at the tavern, whom he had 
charged to wake him — “ ten o’clock, sir.” 

“What’s the matter?” 

“ Ten o’clock, sir.” 

“ What do you mean ? Ten o’clock at night ? ” 

“Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you.” 

“Oh ! I remember. Very well, very well.” 

After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man 
dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five 
minutes, he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He 
turned into the Temple, and, having revived himself by twice 
pacing the pavements of King’s Bench walk and Paper-build¬ 
ings, turned into the Stryver chambers. 

The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, 
had gone home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. 
He had his slippers on, and a loose bedgown, and his throat was 
bare for his greater ease. He had that rather wild, strained, 
seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all 
free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, 
and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through 
the portraits of every Drinking Age. 

“You are a little late, Memory,” said Stryver. 

“ About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour 
later.” 

They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered 
with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed 
upon the hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table 
shone, with plenty of wine upon it, and brandy, and rum, and 
sugar, and lemons. 

“You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 83 

“Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day’s 
client; or seeing him dine — it’s all one ! ” 

“ That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear 
upon the identification. How did you come by it ? When 
did it strike you ? ” 

“ I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought 
I should have been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had 
any luck.” 

Mr. Stryver laughed, till he shook his precocious paunch. 
u You and your luck, Sydney ! Get to work, get to work.” 

Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an 
adjoining room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, 
a basin, and a towel or two. Steeping the towels in the 
water, and partially wringing them out, he folded them on his 
head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down at the table, and 
said, “Now I am ready!” 

“ Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory,” 
said Mr. Stryver gaily, as he looked among his papers. 

“How much?” 

“ Only two sets of them.” 

“ Give me the worst first.” 

“ There they are, Sydney. Fire away ! ” 

The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one 
side of the drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own 
paper-bestrewn table proper, on the other side of it, with 
the bottles and glasses ready to his hand. Both resorted to the 
drinking-table without stint, but each in a different way: the 
lion for the most part reclining with his hands in his waist¬ 
band, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some 
lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent 
face, so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow 
the hand he stretched out for his glass — which often groped 
about, for a minute or more, before it found the glass for his 
lips. Two or three times, the matter in hand became so 
knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on him to get up, 
and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the 
jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp 
head-gear as no words can describe; which were made the 
more ludicrous by his anxious gravity. 


84 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


At length the jackal had got together a compact repast foT 
the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it 
with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his 
remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the 
repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waist¬ 
band again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invig¬ 
orated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh 
application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of 
a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same 
manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three 
in the morning. 

“ And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,” 
said Mr. Stryver. 

The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had 
been steaming again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and 
complied. 

“You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those 
crown witnesses to-day. Every question told.” 

“ I always am sound; am I not ? ” 

“ I don’t gainsay it. What has roughened your temper ? 
Put some punch to it and smooth it again.” 

With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. 

“The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said 
Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in 
the present and the past, “the old seesaw Sydney. Up one 
minute and down the next; now in spirits and now in 
despondency! ” 

“ Ah ! ” returned the other, sighing : “ yes ! The same Syd¬ 
ney, with the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for other 
boys, and seldom did my own.” 

“ And why not ? ” 

“ God knows. It was my way, I suppose.” 

He sat with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched 
out before him, looking at the fire. 

“ Carton,” said his friend, squaring himself at him with a 
bullying air, as if the fire-grate had been the furnace in which 
sustained endeavour was forged, and the one delicate thing to 
be done for the old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School 
was to shoulder him into it, “ your way is, and always was, a 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


85 


lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look at 
me.” 

“ Oh, botheration ! ” returned Sydney, with a lighter and 
more good-humoured laugh, “ don’t you be moral! ” 

“How have I done what I have done 1 ?” said Stryver; “how 
do I do what I do ? ” 

“Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But 
it’s not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about 
it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the 
fiont rank, and I was always behind.” 

“ I had to get into the front rank ; I was not born there, 
was I ? ” 

“ I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you 
were,” said Carton. At this he laughed again, and they both 
laughed. 

“ Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since 
Shrewsbury,” pursued Carton, “you have fallen into your rank, 
and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellow- 
students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking up French, 
and French law, and other French crumbs that we didn’t get 
much good of, you were always somewhere, and I was always 
— nowhere.” 

“ And whose fault was that ? ” 

“Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You 
were always driving and riving and shouldering and pressing, 
to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in 
rust and repose. It’s a gloomy thing, however, to talk about 
one’s own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some other 
direction before I go.” 

“ Well, then ! Pledge me to the pretty witness,” said Stry¬ 
ver, holding up his glass. “Are you turned in a pleasant 
direction ? ” 

Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. 

“Pretty witness,” he muttered, looking down into his glass. 
“ I have had enough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who’s 
your pretty witness'? ” 

“The picturesque doctor’s daughter, Miss Manette.” 

“ She pretty ! ” 

“Is she not? ” 


ts 


86 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“No.” 

“Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole 
Court! ” 

“ Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the 
Old Bailey a judge of beauty? She was a golden-haired 
doll!” 

“Do you know, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, looking at him 
with sharp eyes, and slowly drawing a hand across his florid 
face, — “ do you know, I rather thought, at the time, that you 
sympathised with the golden-haired doll, and were quick to see 
what happened to the golden-haired doll 1 ” 

“ Quick to see what happened ! If a girl, doll or no doll, 
swoons within a yard or two of a man’s nose, he can see it 
without a perspective-glass. I pledge you, but I deny the 
beauty. And now I’ll have no more to drink ; I’ll get to bed.” 

When his host followed him out on the staircase with a 
candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking 
in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, 
the air w T as cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark 
and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths 
of dust were spinning round and round before the morning 
blast, as if the desert sand had risen far away, and the first 
spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. 

Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man 
stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a 
moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honour¬ 
able ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of 
this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and 
graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life 
hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A 
moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a 
well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a 
neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. 

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose ; it rose upon no sadder sight than 
the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their 
directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happi* 
ness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let 
it eat him away. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


87 


CHAPTER VI 

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE 

The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street 
corner not far from Soho Square. On the afternoon of a certain 
fine Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the 
trial for treason, and carried it, as to the public interest and 
memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the 
sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way to 
dine with the doctor. After several relapses into business 
absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the doctor’s friend, and the 
quiet street corner was the sunny part of his life. 

On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, 
early in the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, be¬ 
cause, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with 
the doctor and Lucie ; secondly, because, on unfavourable Sun¬ 
days, he was accustomed to be with them as the family friend, 
talking, reading, looking out of window, and generally getting 
through the day; thirdly, because he happened to have his own 
little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the 
doctor’s household pointed to that time as a likely time for 
solving them. 

A quainter corner than the corner where the doctor lived 
was not to be found in London. There was no way through 
it, and the front windows of the doctor’s lodgings commanded 
a pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retire¬ 
ment on it. There were few buildings, then, north of the 
Oxford Road, and forest trees flourished, and wild flowers grew, 
and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As 
a consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous 
freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray pau¬ 
pers without a settlement; and there was many a good south 
wall, not far off, on which the peaches ripened in their season. 

The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the 
earlier part of the day; but when the streets grew hot, the 
corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but that 
you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a 


88 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and 
a very harbour from the raging streets. 

There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchor¬ 
age, and there was. The doctor occupied two floors of a large, 
still house, where several callings purported to be pursued by 
day, but whereof little was audible any day, and which was 
shunned by all of them at night. In a building at the back, 
attainable by a courtyard where a plane-tree rustled its green 
leaves, church organs claimed to be made, and silver to be 
chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant 
who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hall 
— as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar 
conversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a 
lonely lodger rumoured to live up-stairs, or of a dim coach¬ 
trimming maker asserted to have a counting-house below, was 
ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his 
coat on traversed the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or 
a distant clink was heartl across the courtyard, or a thump from 
the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions 
required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree 
behind the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had 
their own way, from Sunday morning unto Saturday night. 

Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputa¬ 
tion, and its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought 
him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in 
conducting ingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into 
moderate request, and he earned as much as he wanted. 

These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge, 
thoughts, and notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil 
house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon. 

“ Dr. Manette at home ? ” 

Expected home. 

“Miss Lucie at home?” 

Expected home. 

“Miss Pross at home?” 

Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid 
to anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial 
of the fact. 

“ As I am at home myself,” said Mr, Lorry, “ I’ll go up-stairs.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


89 


Although the doctor’s daughter had known nothing of the 
country of her birth, she appeared to have innately derived 
from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one 
of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple as 
the furniture was, it was set off by so many little adornments, 
of no value but for their taste and fancy, that its effect was 
delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from 
the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours, the 
elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by del¬ 
icate hands, clear eyes, and good sense, were at once so pleas¬ 
ant in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as 
Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables 
seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiar expression 
which he knew so well by this time, whether he approved? 

There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which 
they communicated being put open that the air might pass 
freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that 
fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, walked 
from one to another. The first was the best room, and in it 
were Lucie’s birds, and flowers, and books, and desk, and work¬ 
table, and box of water-colours; the second was the doctor’s 
consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third, chang- 
ingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was 
the doctor’s bedroom, and there, in a comer, stood the disused 
shoemaker’s bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on 
the fifth floor of the dismal house by the wine-shop, in the sub¬ 
urb of Saint Antoine in Paris. 

“ I wonder,” said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, 
“ that he keeps that reminder of his sufferings by him ! ” 

“And why wonder at that ? ” was the abrupt inquiry that 
made him start. 

It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of 
hand, whose acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George 
Hotel at Dover, and had since improved. 

“ I should have thought ” — Mr. Lorry began. 

“ Pooh ! You’d have thought! ” said Miss Pross; and Mr. 
Lorry left off. 

“ How do you do?” inquired that lady then — sharply, and 
yet as if to express that she bore him no malice. 


90 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I am pretty well, I thank you,” answered Mr. Lorry, with 
meekness, “ how are you ? ” 

“ Nothing to boast of,” said Miss Pross. 

“Indeed?” ' 

“ Ah ! indeed !” said Miss Pross. “I am very much put 
out about my Ladybird.” 

“ Indeed? ” 

“ For gracious’ sake say something else besides ‘ indeed,’ or 
you’ll fidget me to death,” said Miss Pross, whose character 
(dissociated from stature) was shortness. 

“ Really then ? ” said Mr. Lorry as an amendment. 

“Really, is bad enough,” returned Miss Pross, “but better. 
Yes, I am very much put out.” 

“ May I ask the cause ? ” 

“ I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of 
Ladybird to come here looking after her,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Bo dozens come for that purpose ? ” 

“ Hundreds,” said Miss Pross. 

It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people 
before her time and since) that whenever her original proposi¬ 
tion was questioned, she exaggerated it. 

“Dear me ! ” said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could 
think of. 

“ I have lived with the darling — or the darling has lived 
with me, and paid me for it; which she certainly should never 
have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded 
to keep either myself or her for nothing — since she was ten 
years old. And it’s really very hard,” said Miss Pross. 

Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry 
shook his head ; using that important part of himself as a sort 
of fairy cloak that would fit anything. 

“ All sorts of people, who are not in the least degree worthy 
of the pet, are always turning up,” said Miss Pross. “ When 
you began it — ” 

“ 1 began it, Miss Pross ? ” 

“ Didn’t you ? Who brought her father to life ? ” 

“ Oh ! If that was beginning it ” — said Mr. Lorry. 

“ It wasn’t ending it, I suppose ? I say, when you began 
it, it was hard enough; not that I have any fault to find with 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


91 


Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, 
which is no imputation on him, for it was not to he expected 
that anybody should be, under any circumstances. But it 
really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and multitudes 
of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him), to 
take Ladybird’s affections away from me.” 

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also 
knew her by this time to be, beneath the surface of her eccen¬ 
tricity, one of those unselfish creatures — found only among 
women — who will, for pure love and admiration, bind them¬ 
selves willing slaves to youth when they have lost it, to beauty 
that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never 
fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone 
upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world 
to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful ser¬ 
vice of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary 
taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, that, in the retrib¬ 
utive arrangements made by his own mind, — we all make 
such arrangements, more or less, — he stationed Miss Pross 
much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeas¬ 
urably better got up both by Nature and Art, who had bal¬ 
ances at Tellson’s. 

“There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of 
Ladybird,” said Miss Pross; “and that was my brother Solo¬ 
mon, if he hadn’t made a mistake in life.” 

Here again: Mr. Lorry’s inquiries into Miss Pross’s per¬ 
sonal history had established the fact that her brother Solomon 
was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything 
she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned 
her in her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunction. 
Miss Pross’s fidelity of belief in Solomon (deducting a mere 
trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with 
Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her. 

“ As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both 
people of business,” he said, when they had got back to the 
drawing-room, and had sat down there in friendly relations, 
“let me ask you — does the doctor, in talking with Lucie, 
never refer to the shoemaking time, yet ? ” 

“ Never.” 


92 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him ?” 

“ Ah ! ” returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. “ But 1 
don’t say he don’t refer to it within himself.” 

“ Do you believe that he thinks of it much ? ” 

“ I do,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Do you imagine ” — Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss 
Pross took him up short with: — 

“ Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.” 

“I stand corrected; do you suppose — you go so far as to 
suppose, sometimes?” 

“Now and then,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing 
twinkle in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “that 
Doctor Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through 
all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; 
perhaps, even to the name of his oppressor ? ” 

“I don’t suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.” 

“And that is — ” 

“ That she thinks he has.” 

“Now don’t be angry at my asking all these questions; 
because I am a mere dull man of business, and you are a 
woman of business.” 

“ Dull ? ” Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. 

Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry 
replied, “No, no, no. Surely not. To return to business : Is 
it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably inno¬ 
cent of any crime as we are well assured he is, should never 
touch upon that question ? I will not say with me, though he 
had business relations with me many years ago and we are 
now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is 
so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to 
him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don’t approach the topic with 
you out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest.” 

“ Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad’s the 
best you’ll tell me,” said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of 
the apology, “ he is afraid of the whole subject.” 

“Afraid?” 

“ It’s plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It’s a 
dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


93 


out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recov¬ 
ered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself 
again. That alone wouldn’t make the subject pleasant, I 
should think.” 

It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. 
“ True,” said he, “ and fearful to reflect upon. Yet a doubt 
lurks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor 
Manette to have that suppression always shut up within him. 
Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness it sometimes causes 
me that has led me to our present confidence.” 

“Can’t be helped,” said Miss Pross, shaking her head. 
“ Touch that string, and he instantly changes for the worse. 
Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no 
like. Sometimes, he gets up in the dead of the night, and will 
be heard, by us overhead there, walking up and down, walking 
up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to know then, 
that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, 
in his old prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, 
walking up and down, walking up and down, until he is com¬ 
posed. But he never says a word of the true reason of his 
restlessness to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him. 
In silence they go walking up and down together, walking up 
and down together, till her love and company have brought him 
to himself.” 

Notwithstanding Miss Pross’s denial of her own imagination, 
there was a perception of the pain of being monotonously 
haunted by one sad idea, in her repetition of the phrase, walk 
ing up and down, which testified to her possessing such a thing. 

The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for 
echoes; it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of 
coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of that 
weary pacing to and fro had set it going. 

“ Here they are! ” said Miss Pross, rising to break up the 
conference : “ and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty 
soon! ” 

It was such a curious comer in its acoustical properties, such 
a peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open 
window, looking for the father and daughter whose steps he 
heard, he fancied they would never approach. Not only would 


94 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the echoes die away, as though the steps had gone, but echoes 
of other steps that never came would be heard in their stead, 
and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand. 
However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss 
Pross was ready at the street door to receive them. 

Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild and red and 
grim, taking off her darling’s bonnet when she came up-stairs, 
and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blow¬ 
ing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and 
smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possi¬ 
bly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and 
handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight, too, 
embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against her 
taking so much trouble for her — which last she only dared to 
do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to 
her own chamber and cried. The doctor was a pleasant sight, 
too, looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt 
Lucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in 
them as Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were 
possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight, too, beaming at all 
this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor stars for having 
lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But no hundreds 
of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain 
for the fulfilment of Miss Pross’s prediction. 

Dinner-time, and still no hundreds of people. In the arrange¬ 
ments of the little household, Miss Pross took charge of the 
lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her 
dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well cooked and so 
well served, and so neat in their contrivances, half English and 
half French, that nothing could be better. Miss Pross’s friend¬ 
ship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged 
Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished 
French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would im¬ 
part culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and 
daughters of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that 
the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded 
her as quite a Sorceress, or Cinderella’s Godmother, who would 
send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the 
garden, and change them into anything she pleased. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


95 


On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the doctor’s table, but on 
other days persisted in taking her meals, at unknown periods, 
either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the second 
floor—a blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird ever 
gained admittance. On this occasion Miss Pross, responding to 
Ladybird’s pleasant face and pleasant efforts to please her, 
unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too. 

It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed 
that the wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and 
they should sit there in the air. As everything turned upon 
her and revolved about her, they went out under the plane-tree, 
and she carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. 
Lorry. She had installed herself some time before, as Mr. 
Lorry’s cup-bearer; and while they sat under the plane-tree, 
talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and 
ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane 
tree whispered to them in its own way above their heads. 

Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. 
Mr. Darnay presented himself while they were sitting under 
the plane-tree, but he was only One. 

Doctor Manette received him kindly and so did Lucie. But 
Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the 
head and body, and retired into the house. She was not unfre- 
quently the victim of this disorder, and she called it, in familiar 
conversation, “a fit of the jerks.” 

The doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially 
young. The resemblance between him and Lucie was very 
strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning 
on his shoulder, and he resting his arm on the back of her chair, 
it was very agreeable to trace the likeness. 

He had been talking all day, on many subjects and with 
unusual vivacity. “ Pray, Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Darnay, 
as they sat under the plane-tree, — and he said it in the natu¬ 
ral pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to be the 
old buildings of London, — “have you seen much of the 
Tower ? ” 

“Lucie and I have been there, but only casually. We have 
seen enough of it, to know that it teems with interest; little 
more.” 


96 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I have been there, as you remember,” said Darnay, with a 
smile, though reddening a little angrily, “ in another character, 
and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of 
it. They told me a curious thing when I was there.” 

“ What was that ? ” Lucie asked. 

“In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an 
old dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and for¬ 
gotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered with in¬ 
scriptions which had been carved by prisoners — dates, names, 
complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone in an angle of 
the wall, one prisoner who seemed to have gone to execution 
had cut, as his last work, three letters. They were done with 
some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady 
hand. At first, they were read as D I 0; but on being more 
carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There 
was no record or legend of any prisoner with those initials, and 
many fruitless guesses were made what the name could have 
been. At length, it was suggested that the letters were not ini¬ 
tials, but the complete word, Dig. The floor was examined 
very carefully under the inscription, and in the earth, beneath a 
stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found the ashes 
of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case or 
bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be 
read, but he had written something, and hidden it away to keep 
it from the jailer.” 

“ My father ! ” exclaimed Lucie, “ you are ill! ” 

He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. 
His manner and his look quite terrified them all. 

“ No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, 
and they made me start. We had better go in.” 

He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really fall¬ 
ing in large drops, and he showed the back of his hand with 
rain-drops on it. But he said not a single word in reference tc 
the discovery that had been told of, and, as they went into the 
house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied 
it detected, on his face, as it turned towards Charles Darnay, 
the same singular look that had been upon it when it turned 
towards him in the passages of the Court House. 

He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


97 


had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant 
in the hall was not more steady than he was, when he stopped 
under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against 
slight surprises (if he ever would be), and that the rain had 
startled him. 

Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the 
jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton 
had lounged in, but he made only Two. 

The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with 
doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. 
When the tea-table was done with, they all moved to one of 
the windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie 
sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned 
against a window. The curtains were long and white, and 
some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner caught 
them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. 

“ The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,” said 
Doctor Manette. “ It comes slowly.” 

“ It comes surely,” said Carton. 

They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; 
as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, 
always do. 

There was a great hurry in the streets, of people speeding 
away to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful 
comer for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming 
and going, yet not a footstep was there. 

“ A multitude of people, and yet a solitude! ” said Darnay, 
when they had listened for a while. 

“Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. “Some¬ 
times I have sat here of an evening, until I have fancied—but 
even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, 
when all is so black and solemn — ” 

“ Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.” 

“ It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only im¬ 
pressive as we originate them, I think; they are not to 
be communicated. I have sometimes sat alone here of an 
evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the 
echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by and by into our 
lives,” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if 
that be so,” Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. 

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became 
more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with 
the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; 
some, as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, 
some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant 
streets, and not one within sight. 

“ Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss 
Manette, Dr are we to divide them among us ? ” 

“I don’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish 
fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to 
it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the foot¬ 
steps of the people who are to come into my life and my 
father’s.” 

“ I take them into mine ! ” said Carton. “ I ask no questions 
and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down 
upon us, Miss Manette, and I see them! — by the Lightning.” 
He added the last words after there had been a vivid flash 
which had shown him lounging in the window. 

“ And I hear them! ” he added again, after a peal of thun¬ 
der. “ Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious ! ” 

It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it 
stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable 
storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, 
and there was not a moment’s interval in crash, and fire, and 
rain, until after the moon rose at midnight. 

The great bell of Saint Paul’s was striking One in the cleared 
air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bear¬ 
ing a lantern, set forth on his return passage to Clerkenwell. 
There were solitary patches of road on the way between Soho 
and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of footpads, always 
retained Jerry for this service, though it was usually performed 
a good two hours earlier. 

“ What a night it has been ! Almost a night, Jerry,” said 
Mr. Lorry, “ to bring the dead out of their graves.” 

“ I never see the night myself, master, — nor yet I don’t 
expect to it, —what would do that,” answered Jerry. 

“Good night, Mr. Carton,” said the man of business. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


99 


“ Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night 
again, together! ” 

Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its 
rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too. 


CHAPTER VII 

MONSEIGNEUR IN TOWN 

Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, 
held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. 
Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctu¬ 
aries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in 
the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take 
his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things 
with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be 
rather rapidly swallowing France; but his morning’s chocolate 
could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur with¬ 
out the aid of four strong men besides the Cook. 

Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous deco¬ 
ration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than 
two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and 
chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy choco¬ 
late to Monseigneur’s lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate- 
pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the 
chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; 
a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the 
two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impos¬ 
sible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants 
on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring 
heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon 
if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; 
he must have died of two. 

Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, 
where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly 
represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most 
nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impressi- 


100 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ble was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera 
had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of 
state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A 
happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all 
countries similarly favoured ! — always was for England (by 
way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart 
who sold it. 

Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public busi¬ 
ness, which was, to let everything go on in its own way; of 
particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly 
noble idea that it must all go his way — tend to his own 
power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, 
Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world 
was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the 
original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: “ The 
earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.” 

Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrass¬ 
ments crept into his affairs, both private and public; and he 
had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with 
a Farmer-General. As to finances public, because Monseigneur 
could not make anything at all of them, and must consequently 
let them out to somebody who could; as to finances private, 
because Farmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, after 
generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. 
Hence, Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while 
there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest 
garment she could wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon 
a very rich Farmer-General, poor in family. Which Farmer- 
General, carrying an appropriate cane with a golden apple on 
the top of it, was now among the company in the outer rooms, 
much prostrated before by mankind — always excepting supe¬ 
rior mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife 
included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt. 

A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses 
stood in his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his 
halls, six body-women waited on his wife. As one who pre¬ 
tended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he could, 
the Farmer-General — howsoever his matrimonial relations con¬ 
duced to social morality — was at least the greatest reality 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 101 

among the personages who attended at the hotel of Mon¬ 
seigneur that day. 

For the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and 
adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and skill 
of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; 
considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and 
nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the 
watching towers of Notre-Dame, almost equidistant from the 
two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an 
exceedingly uncomfortable business — if that could have been 
anybody’s business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military 
officers destitute of military knowledge ; naval officers with no 
idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs ; brazen 
ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, 
loose tongues, and looser lives ; all totally unfit for their several 
callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but 
all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and there¬ 
fore foisted on all public employments from which anything was 
to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score. 
People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the 
State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or 
with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true 
earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors, who made great 
fortunes our of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that 
never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante¬ 
chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered 
every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State 
was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to 
root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any 
ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. 
Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with 
words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, 
talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the 
transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering accumulated 
by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding, 
which was at that remarkable time — and has been since — to 
be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject 
of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaus¬ 
tion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these 


102 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, 
that the Spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur — 
forming a goodly half of the polite company — would have 
found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one 
solitary wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to 
being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing 
a troublesome creature into this world — which does not go fax 
towards the realisation of the name of mother — there was no 
such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the 
unfashionable babies close, and brought them up ; and charming 
grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty. 

The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in 
attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were 
half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, 
some vague misgiving in them that things in general were 
going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, 
half of the half dozen had become members of a fantastic sect 
of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within them¬ 
selves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic 
on the spot — thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger¬ 
post to the Future, for Monseigneur’s guidance. Besides these 
Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, 
which mended matters with a jargon about “the Centre of 
Truth : ” holding that Man had got out of the Centre of truth 
— which did not need much demonstration — but had not got 
out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from fly¬ 
ing out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back 
into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, 
accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on — and it did 
a world of good which never became manifest. 

But the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel 
of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment 
had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there 
would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powder¬ 
ing and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially 
preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such 
delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything 
going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest 
breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they lan- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


103 


guidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little 
bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk 
and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that 
fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away. 

Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for 
keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for 
a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace 
of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, 
through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society 
(except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Com¬ 
mon Executioner : who, in pursuance of the charm, was required 
to officiate “ frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and 
white silk stockings.” At the gallows and the wheel — the axe 
was a rarity — Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode 
among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans 
and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And 
who among the company at Monseigneur’s reception in that 
seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly 
doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, 
gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the 
very stars out! 

Monseigneur, having eased his four men of their burdens and 
taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests 
to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, 
what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humili¬ 
ation ! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in 
that way was left for Heaven — which may have been one 
among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur 
never troubled it. 

Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile the:e, a whisper 
on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Mon¬ 
seigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region 
of the Circumference of Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, 
and came back again, and so in due course of time got himsell 
shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and was seen 
no more. 

The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a 
little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing down 
stairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, 


104 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his 
hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out. 

“ I devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door 
on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “ to 
the Devil! ” 

With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had 
shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked down stairs. 

He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty 
in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a trans¬ 
parent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set 
expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was 
very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two 
compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever 
showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour sometimes, 
and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by some¬ 
thing like a faint pulsation ; then they gave a look of treachery 
and cruelty to the whole countenance. Examined with atten¬ 
tion, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the 
line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being 
much too horizontal and thin ; still, in the effect the face made 
it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. 

Its owner went down stairs into the courtyard, got into his 
carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked with 
him at the reception ; he had stood in a little space apart, and 
Monseigneur might have been warmer in his manner. It ap¬ 
peared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see 
the common people dispersed before his horses, and often barely 
escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were 
charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man 
brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. 
The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that 
deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without foot¬ 
ways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered 
and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But few 
cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and in this 
matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get 
out of their difficulties as they could. 

With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment 
of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


105 


carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with 
women screaming before it, and men clutching each other 
and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a 
street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sicken¬ 
ing little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, 
and the horses reared and plunged. 

But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would 
not have stopped ; carriages were often known to drive on, and 
leave their wounded behind, and why not ? But the frightened 
valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at 
the horses’ bridles. 

“ What has gone wrong ? ” said Monsieur, calmly looking out. 

A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among 
the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the 
fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it 
like a wild animal. 

“ Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis ! ” said a ragged and sub¬ 
missive man, “it is a child.” 

“ Why does he make that abominable noise ? Is it his child 1 ” 

“Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis — it is a pity — yes.” 

The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, 
where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As 
the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came run¬ 
ning at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for 
an instant on his sword-hilt. 

“ Killed! ” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending 
both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. 
“ Dead ! ” 

The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. 
There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at 
him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible 
menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after 
the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice 
of the submissive man who had spoken was flat and tame in its 
extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over 
them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. 

He took out his purse. 

“It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people can¬ 
not take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other 


106 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury 
you have done my horses. See ! Give him that.” 

He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the 
heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as 
it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly 
cry, “ Dead ! ” 

He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for 
whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable crea¬ 
ture fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to 
the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motion¬ 
less bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, 
however, as the men. 

“ I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a brave 
man, my Gaspard ! It is better for the poor little plaything to 
die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. 
Could it have lived an hour as happily 1 ” 

“ You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smil¬ 
ing. “ How do they call you ? ” 

“ They call me Defarge.” 

“Of what trade ?” 

“ Monsieur the Marquis, vender of wine.” 

“ Pick up that, philosopher and vender of wine,” said the 
Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as you 
will. The horses there ; are they right ? ” 

Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, 
Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just 
being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had acci¬ 
dentally broken some common thing, and had paid for it and 
could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed 
by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor. 

“ Hold ! ” said Monsieur the Marquis. “ Hold the horses ! 
Who threw that 1 ” 

He looked to the spot where Defarge the vender of wine had 
stood a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling 
on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that 
stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. 

“You dogs ! ” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an 
unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose : “I would 
ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


107 


the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and 
if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed 
under the wheels.” 

So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their 
experience of what such a man could do to them, within the 
law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye 
was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who 
stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in 
the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemp¬ 
tuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he 
leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word “Go on !” 

He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in 
quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer- 
General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand 
Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continu¬ 
ous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their 
holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; 
soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, 
and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which 
they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and 
hidden himself away with it, when the women, who had tended 
the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there 
watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy 
Ball — when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knit¬ 
ting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water 
of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into even¬ 
ing, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, 
time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close 
together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted 
up at supper, all things ran their course. 


CHAPTER VIII 

MONSEIGNEUR IN THE COUNTRY 

A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it but not 
abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, 
patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vege-. 


108 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


table substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the 
men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency 
towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly — a dejected 
disposition to give up, and wither away. 

Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling-carriage (which might 
have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two pos¬ 
tilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of 
Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breed¬ 
ing ; it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external 
circumstance beyond his control — the setting sun. 

The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling-carriage 
when it gained the hilltop, that its occupant was steeped in 
crimson. “ It will die out,” said Monsieur the Marquis, glanc¬ 
ing at his hands, “ directly.” 

In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. 
When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the 
carriage slid down-hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of 
dust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquis 
going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was 
taken off. 

But there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little 
village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond 
it, a church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a 
crag with a fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all 
these darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis 
looked, with the air of one who was coming near home. 

The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, 
poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post- 
horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its 
poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them 
were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions - and the 
like for supper, while many were at the fouutain, washing 
leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth 
that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them 
poor were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the 
church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to 
be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscrip¬ 
tion in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was 
any village left unswallowed. 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


109 


Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men 
and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect — 
Life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the 
little village under the mill; or captivity and Death in the 
dominant prison on the crag. 

Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his 
postilions’ whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in 
the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Mon¬ 
sieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling-carriage at the 
posting-house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the 
peasants suspended their operations to look at him. He 
looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the 
slow sure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was 
to make the meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition 
which should survive the truth through the best part of a hun¬ 
dred years. 

Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces 
that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped 
before Monseigneur of the Court — only the difference was, 
that these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate 
— when a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group. 

“ Bring me hither that fellow ! ” said the Marquis to the 
courier. 

The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows 
closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people 
at the Paris fountain. 

“ I passed you on the road ? ” 

“ Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed 
on the road.” 

“ Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both ? ” 

“ Monseigneur, it is true.” 

“ What did you look at, so fixedly ?” 

“Monseigneur, I looked at the man.” 

He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed 
under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the 
carriage. 

“ What man, pig ? And why look there ? ” 

“ Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe 
—■ the drag.” 


110 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Who ?demanded the traveller. 

“ Monseigneur, the man.” 

“ May the Devil carry away these idiots ! How do you call 
the man ? You know all the men of this part of the country. 
Who was he 1 ” 

“ Your clemency, Monseigneur ! He was not of this part of 
the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him.” 

“ Swinging by the chain ? To be suffocated ? ” 

“ With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, 
Monseigneur. His head hanging over — like this! ” 

He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, 
with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; 
then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. 

“ What was he like ? ” 

“ Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered 
with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre! ” 

The picture produced an immense sensation in the little 
crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, 
looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether 
he had any spectre on his conscience. 

“ Truly, you did well,” said the Marquis, felicitously sensible 
that such vermin were not to ruffle him, “ to see a thief accom¬ 
panying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. 
Bah ! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle ! ” 

Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other tax¬ 
ing functionary, united; he had come out with great obsequi¬ 
ousness to assist at this examination, and had held the examined 
by the drapery of his arm in an official manner. 

“ Bah ! Go aside ! ” said Monsieur Gabelle. 

“ Lay hands on this stranger if lie seeks to lodge in your 
village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, 
Gabelle.” 

“Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your 
orders.” 

“Did he run away, fellow? —where is that Accursed?” 

The accursed was already under the carriage with some half 
dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue 
cap. Some half dozen other particular friends promptly haled 
him out, aud presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. 



The village had its one poor street, 



























































































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


111 


“Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag ? ” 

“ Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hillside, head 
first, as a person plunges into the river.” 

“ See to it, Gabelle. Go on ! ” 

The half dozen who were peering at the chain were still among 
the wheels, like sheep ; the wheels turned so suddenly that they 
were lucky to save their skins and hones; they had very little 
else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate. 

The burst with which the carriage started out of the village 
and up the rise beyond was soon checked by the steepness of the . 
hill. Gradually it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumber¬ 
ing upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night. 
The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about 
them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes 
of their whips ; the valet walked by the horses; the courier was 
audible, trotting on ahead into the dim distance. 

At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial- 
ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on 
it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced 
rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life — his 
own life, may be — for it was dreadfully spare and thin. 

To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long 
been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was 
kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, 
rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage-door. 

“ It is you, Monseigneur ! Monseigneur, a petition.” 

With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchange¬ 
able face, Monseigneur looked out. 

“ How, then ! What is it ? Always petitions ! ” 

“ Monseigneur. For the love of the great God ! My hus¬ 
band, the forester.” 

“What of your husband, the forester? Always the same 
with you people. He cannot pay something ? ” 

“ He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead.” 

“ Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you ? ” 

“ Alas, no, Monseigneur ! But he lies yonder, under a little 
heap of poor grass.” 

“ Well?” 

“ Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass ? * 


112 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Again, well ? ” 

She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was 
one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and 
knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them 
on the carriage-door—tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a 
human breast, and could be expected to feel the appealing 
touch. 

“ Monseigneur, hear me ! Monseigneur, hear my petition! 
My husband died of want; so many die of want; so many 
more will die of want.” 

“ Again, well ? Can I feed them 1 ” 

“ Mouseigneur, the good God knows; but I don’t ask it. 
My petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my hus¬ 
band’s name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. 
Otherwise, the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be 
found when I am dead of the same malady. I shall be laid 
under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so 
many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Mon¬ 
seigneur ! Monseigneur ! ” 

The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had 
broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, 
she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the 
Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance 
that remained between him and his chateau. 

The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, 
and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and 
toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the 
mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he 
was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long 
as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, 
they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little case¬ 
ments ; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars 
came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of hav¬ 
ing been extinguished. 

The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over¬ 
hanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; 
and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as 
his carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau was 
opened to him. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


118 


“ Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from 
England ? ” 

“ Monseigneur, not yet.” 


CHAPTER IX 
the gorgon’s head 

It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur 
the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard before it, and two 
stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the 
principal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone 
balustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces 
of men, and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the 
Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two cen¬ 
turies ago. 

Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, 
flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturb¬ 
ing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the 
roof of the great pile of stable-building away among the trees. 
All else was so quiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, 
and the other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they 
were in a close room of state, instead of being in the open 
night-air. Other sound than the owl’s voice there was none, 
save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for it was 
one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour 
together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath 
again. 

The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Mar¬ 
quis crossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, 
and knives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding- 
rods and riding-whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his 
benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry. 

Avoiding the larger rooms, which -were dark and made fast 
for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer 
going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. 
This thrown open admitted him to his own private apartment 
of three rooms; his bed-chamber and two others. High vaulted 


114 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths 
for the burning of wood in winter-time, and all luxuries befit¬ 
ting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The 
fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to 
break — the fourteenth Louis — was conspicuous in their rich 
furniture; but it was diversified by many objects that were 
illustrations of old pages in the history of France. 

A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a 
round room, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-topped 
towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and 
the wooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only 
showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their 
broad lines of stone colour. 

“ My nephew,” said the Marquis, glancing at the supper 
preparation ; “ they said he was not arrived.” 

Nor was he; but he had been expected with Monseigneur. 

“ Ah ! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; neverthe¬ 
less, leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an 
hour.” 

In a quarter of an hour, Monseigneur was ready, and sat 
down alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair 
was opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup, and 
was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it 
down. 

“ What is that ? ” he calmly asked, looking with attention at 
the horizontal lines of black and stone colour. 

‘ ‘ Monseigneur ? That 1 ” 

“ Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.” 

It was done. 

“ Well? ” 

“Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night and 
all that are here.” 

The servant who spoke had thrown the blinds wide, had 
looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood, with that blank 
behind him, looking round for instructions. 

“Good,” said the imperturbable master. “Close them 
again.” 

That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his sup¬ 
per. He was halfway through it, when he again stopped with 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


115 


his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on 
briskly, and came up to the front of the chateau. 

“ Ask who is arrived.” 

It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few 
leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had 
diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come 
up with Monseigneur on the road. He had heard of Mon¬ 
seigneur, at the posting-houses, as being before him. 

He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited 
him then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In 
a little while, he came. He had been known in England as 
Charles Darnay. 

Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did 
not shake hands. 

“You left Paris yesterday, sir?” he said to Monseigneur, as 
he took his seat at table. 

“ Yesterday. And you ? ” 

“ I come direct.” 

“ From London ?*” 

“Yes.” 

“ You have been a long time coming,” said the Marquis, with 
a smile. 

“ On the contrary; I come direct.” 

“ Pardon me ! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a 
long time intending the journey.” 

“ I have been detained by ” —the nephew stopped a moment 
in his answer — “various business.” 

“ Without doubt,” said the polished uncle. 

So long as a servant was present, no other words passed be¬ 
tween them. When coffee had been served and they were alone 
together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the 
eyes of the face that was like a fine mask, opened a conversa¬ 
tion. 

“ I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object 
that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected 
peril; but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death 
I hope it would have sustained me.” 

“ Not to death,” said the uncle; “ it is not necessary to say. 
to death.” 


116 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I doubt, sir,” returned the nephew, “ whether, if it had 
carried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared 
to stop me there.” 

The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the 
fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; 
the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so 
clearly a slight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring. 

“Indeed, sir,” pursued the nephew, “for anything I know, 
you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious 
appearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded 
me.” 

“ No, no, no,” said the uncle pleasantly. 

“ But, however that may be,” resumed the nephew, glancing 
at him with deep distrust, “ I know that your diplomacy would 
stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to means.” 

“My friend, I told you so,” said the uncle, with a fine pulsa¬ 
tion in the two marks. “ Do me the favour to recall that I told 
you so, long ago.” 

“ I recall it.” 

“ Thank you,” said the Marquis — very sweetly indeed. 

His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musi¬ 
cal instrument. 

“In, effect, sir,” pursued the nephew, “I believe it to be at 
once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me 
out of a prison in France here.” 

“ I do not quite understand,” returned the uncle, sipping his 
coffee. “ Dare I ask you to explain ? ” 

“ I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, 
and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a 
letter de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefi¬ 
nitely.” 

“ It is possible,” said the uncle, with great calmness. “ For 
the honour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you 
to that extent. Pray excuse me ! ” 

“I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day 
before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,” observed the 
nephew. 

“I would not say happily, my friend,” returned the uncle, 
with refined politeness; “I would not be sure of that. A 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


117 


good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advan¬ 
tages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater 
advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless 
to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. 
These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the 
power and honour of families, these slight favours that might 
so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and 
importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are 
granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but 
France in all such things is changed for the worst. Our not 
remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the sur¬ 
rounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been 
taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom), one 
fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for pro¬ 
fessing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter — his 
daughter ! We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy 
has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these 
days, might (I do not go so far as to say would, but might) 
cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad ! ” 

The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook 
his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of 
a country still containing himself, that great means of regen¬ 
eration. 

“We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and 
in the modern time also,” said the nephew gloomily, “that I 
believe our name to be more detested than any name in France.” 

“ Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “ Detestation of the high 
is the involuntary homage of the low.” 

“There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, “a 
face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which 
looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of 
fear and slavery.” 

“A compliment,” said the Marquis, “to the grandeur of the 
family, merited by the manner in which the family has sus¬ 
tained its grandeur. Hah ! ” And he took another gentle little 
pinch of snuff, and lightly crossed his legs. 

But when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered 
his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine 
inask looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of 


118 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


keenness, closeness, and dislike, than was comportable with its 
wearer’s assumption of indifference. 

“ Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark defer¬ 
ence of fear and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, 
“will keep the dogs obedient to the whip as long as this roof,” 
looking up to it, “shuts out the sky.” 

That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a 
picture of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, 
and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years 
hence, could have been shown to him that night, he might have 
been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, fire-charred, 
plunder-wrecked ruins. As for the roof he vaunted, he might 
have found that shutting out the sky in a new way — to wit 
for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was 
fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. 

“Meanwhile,” said the Marquis, “I will preserve the honour 
and repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be 
fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night ? ” 

“ A moment more.” 

“An hour, if you please.” 

“Sir,” said the nephew, “we have done wrong, and are 
reaping the fruits of wrong.” 

u We have done wrong?” repeated the Marquis, with an 
inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, 
then to himself. 

“ Our family; our honourable family, whose honour is of so 
much account to both of us, in such different ways. Even in 
my father’s time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every 
human creature who came between us and our pleasure, what¬ 
ever it was. Why need I speak of my father’s time, when it 
is equally yours? Can I separate my father’s twin-brother, 
joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself?” 

“Death has done that l” said the Marquis. 

“And has left me,” answered the nephew, “bound to a sys¬ 
tem that is frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in 
it; seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother’s lips, 
and obey the last look of my dear mother’s eyes, which implored 
me to have mercy and to redress ; and tortured by seeking assist¬ 
ance and power in vain.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


119 


“ Seeking them from me, my nephew,” said the Marquis, 
touching him on the breast with his forefinger, — they were 
now standing by the hearth, — “ you will for ever seek them in 
vain, be assured.” 

Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face 
was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood 
looking quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. 
Once again he touched him on the breast, as though his finger 
were the fine point of a small sword, with which, in delicate 
finesse, he ran him through the body, and said, — 

“ My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which 
I have lived.” 

When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, 
and put his box in his pocket. 

“ Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after ring¬ 
ing a small bell on the table, “and accept your natural destiny. 
But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see.” 

“ This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew 
sadly; “I renounce them.” 

“ Are they both yours to renounce ? France may be, but 
is the property ? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but is it 
yet ? ” 

“ I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. 
If it passed to me from you to-morrow — ” 

“ Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable.” 

“ — or twenty years hence— ” 

“ You do me too much honour,” said the Marquis ; “ still, I 
prefer that supposition.” 

“ — I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. 
It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery 
and ruin ! ” 

“ Hah! ” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room. 

“ To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, 
under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of 
waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, 
hunger, nakedness, and suffering.” 

“ Hah ! ” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner. 

“ If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands 
better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) 


120 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people 
who cannot leave it, and who have been long wrung to the last 
point of endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less; but 
it is not for me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land.” 

“And you?” said the uncle. “Forgive my curiosity; do 
you, under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live ? ” 

“ I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even 
with nobility at their backs, may have to do some day — work.” 

“In England, for example? ” 

“ Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe for me in this country. 
The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it 
in no other.” 

The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber 
to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of 
communication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened 
for the retreating step of his valet. 

“ England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently 
you have prospered there,” he observed then, turning his calm 
face to his nephew with a smile. 

“I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am 
sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my 
Refuge.” 

“ They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of 
many. You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge 
there ? A doctor ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ With a daughter ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“Yes,” said the Marquis. “You are fatigued. Good night!” 

As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was 
a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery 
to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew 
forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines of the set¬ 
ting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings 
in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely 
diabolic. 

“ Yes,” repeated the Marquis. “ A doctor with a daughter 
Yes. So commences the new philosophy ! You are fatigued 
Good night! ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


121 


It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone 
face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The 
nephew looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door. 

“ Good night! ” said the uncle. “ I look to the pleasure of 
seeing you again in the morning. Good repose ! Light Mon¬ 
sieur my nephew to his chamber there ! — And burn Monsieur 
my nephew in his bed, if you will,” he added to himself, before 
he rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own 
bedroom. 

The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to 
and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for 
sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly 
slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a 
refined tiger — looked like some enchanted marquis of the 
impenitently wicked, sort, in story, whose periodical change 
into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on. 

He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, look¬ 
ing again at the scraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden 
into his mind: the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting 
sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little 
village in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the 
mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the chain under 
the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the 
little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and 
the tall man with his arms up, crying, “ Dead ! ” 

“ I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “ and may go 
to bed.” 

So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he 
let his thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night 
break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. 

The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black 
night for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the horses 
in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the 
owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise 
conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the 
obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is 
set down for them. 

For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lien 
and human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay 


122 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


on all the landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the 
hushing dust on all the roads. The burial-place had got to the 
pass that its little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable 
from one another; the figure on the Cross might have come 
down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, 
taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of ban¬ 
quets, as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the 
driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept 
soundly, and were fed and freed. 

The fountain in the village liowed unseen and unheard, and 
the fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard — 
both melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the 
spring of Time — through three dark hours. Then, the grey 
water of both began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of 
the stone faces of the chateau were opened* 

Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of 
the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the 
glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to 
blood, and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds 
was loud and high, and, on the weather-beaten sill of the great 
window of the bed-chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little 
bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At this, the 
nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open 
mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken. 

Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the vil¬ 
lage. Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, 
and people came forth shivering — chilled, as yet, by the new 
sweet air. Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day 
among the village population. Some, to the fountain ; some, 
to the fields; men and women here, to dig and delve; men and 
women there, to see to the poor live-stock, and lead the bony 
cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. 
In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; 
attendant on the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a break 
fast among the weeds at its foot. 

The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke 
gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives 
of the chase had been reddened as of old; then, had gleamed 
trenchant in the morning sunshine; now, doors and windows 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


123 


were thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over 
their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at door¬ 
ways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs 
pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatiently to be loosed. 

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, 
and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the 
great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the 
stairs, nor the hurried figures on the terrace, nor the booting 
and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick 
saddling of horses and riding away 1 

What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of 
roads, already at work on the hilltop beyond the village, with 
his day’s dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it 
was worth no crow’s while to peck at, on a heap of stones ? 
Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped 
one over him as they sow chance seeds ? Whether or no, the 
mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, 
down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got 
to the fountain. 

All the people of the village w^ere at the fountain, standing 
about in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but show¬ 
ing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The 
led cows, hastily brought in and tethered to anything that 
would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying dowji 
chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their trouble, 
which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some 
of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting- 
house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, 
and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a pur¬ 
poseless way, that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, 
the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of 
fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast 
with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what por¬ 
tended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a 
servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said 
Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was) at a gallop like a 
new version of the German ballad of Leonora ? 

It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at 
the chateau. 


124 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, 
and had added the one stone face wanting ; the stone face for 
which it had waited through about two hundred years. 

It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was 
like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. 
Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it 
was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was 
scrawled: — 

“ Drive him fast to his tomb. This , from Jacques.” 
CHAPTER X 

TWO PROMISES 

More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, 
and Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher 
teacher of the French language who was conversant with French 
literature. In this age, he would have been a Professor; in 
that age, he was a Tutor. He read with young men who could 
find any leisure and interest for the study of a living tongue 
spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for its stores 
of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them besides, in 
sound English, and render them into sound English. Such 
masters were not at that time easily found; Princes that had 
been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher 
class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledg¬ 
ers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor, whose attain¬ 
ments made the student’s way unusually pleasant and profitable, 
and as an elegant translator who brought something to his work 
besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon 
became known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, more¬ 
over, with the circumstances of his country, and those were of 
ever growing interest. So, with great perseverance and untiring 
industry, he prospered. 

In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of 
gold, nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted 
expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected 
2abour, and he found it, and did it, and made the best of it. 
In this, his prosperity consisted. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


125 


A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where 
he read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who 
drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead of 
conveying Greek and Latin through the Custom House. The 
rest of his time he passed in London. 

Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden to 
these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the 
world of a man has invariably gone one way — Charles Darnay’s 
way — the way of the love of a woman. 

He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. 
He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound 
of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so ten¬ 
derly beautiful as hers when it was confronted with his own on 
the edge of the grave that had been dug for him. But he had 
not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination at the 
deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the 
long, long, dusty roads — the solid stone chateau which had 
itself become the mere mist of a dream — had been done a year, 
and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, dis¬ 
closed to her the state of his heart. 

That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was 
again a summer day when, lately arrived in London from his 
college occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent 
on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind to Doctor 
Manette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew 
Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. 

He found the doctor reading in his armchair at a window. 
The energy which had at once supported him under his old 
sufferings and aggravated their sharpness had been gradually 
restored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed, 
with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and 
vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was sometimes a 
little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the exercise of 
his other recovered faculties; but this had never been frequently 
observable, and had grown more and more rare. 

He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue 
with ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered 
Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his book and 
held out his hand. 


.126 


A TALE OE TWO CITIES 


“ Charles Darnay ! I rejoice to see you. We have bee» 
counting on your return these three or four days past. Mr. 
Stryver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both 
made you out to be more than due.” 

“I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,” he 
answered, a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to 
the doctor. “ Miss Manette — ” 

“Is well,” said the doctor, as he stopped short, “and your 
return will delight us all. She has gone out on some household 
matters, but will soon be home.” 

“ Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the 
opportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you.” 

There was a blank silence. 

“ Yes ? ” said the doctor, with evident constraint. “ Bring 
your chair Jiere, and speak on.” 

He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speak¬ 
ing-on less easy. 

“ I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so 
intimate here,” so he at length began, “for some year and a 
half, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch may 
not — ” 

He was stayed by the doctor’s putting out his hand to stop 
him. When he had kept it so a little wdiile, he said, drawing 
it back: — 

“ Is Lucie the topic ? ” 

“ She is.” 

“ It is hard for me to speak of her, at any time. It is very 
hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles 
Darnay.” 

“It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep 
love, Doctor Manette ! ” he said deferentially. 

There was another blank silence before her father rejoined : — 

“ I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.” 

His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too. 
that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject 
that Charles Darnay hesitated. 

“ Shall I go on, sir? ” 

Another blank. 

“ Yes, go on.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


127 


“ You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know 
how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing 
my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with 
which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love 
your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If 
ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved 
yourself; let your old love speak for me ! ” 

The doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent 
on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand 
again, hurriedly, and cried : — 

“ Not that, sir ! Let that be ! I adjure you, do not recall 
that! ” 

His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in 
Charles Darnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned 
with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal 
to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and remained 
silent. 

“I ask your pardon,” said the doctor, in a subdued tone, 
after some moments. “I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you 
may be satisfied of it.” 

He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, 
or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his 
white hair overshadowed his face. 

“ Have you spoken to Lucie ” 

“ No.” 

“ Nor written V 

“ Never.” 

“It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your 
self-denial is to be referred to your consideration for her father. 
Her father thanks you.” 

He offered his hand ; but his eyes did not go with it. 

“ I know,” said Darnay respectfully, — “ how can I fail to 
know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day 
to day, — that between you and Miss Manette there is an affec¬ 
tion so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances 
in w r hich it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, 
even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, 
Doctor Manette, — how can I fail to know, — that, mingled 
with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a 


328 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


woman, there is, in her heart towards you, all the love and 
reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood 
she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you with all the 
constancy and fervour of her present years and character, 
united to the trustfulness and attachment of the early days 
in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if 
you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, 
you could hardly be invested, in her sight, 1 with a more sacred 
character than that in which you are always with her. I know 
that when she is clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and 
woman, all in one, are round your neck. I know that in lov¬ 
ing you she sees and loves her mother at her own age, sees and 
loves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted, loves you 
through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I 
have known this, night and day, since I have known you in 
your home.” 

Her father sat ‘silent, with his face bent down. His breath¬ 
ing was a little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of 
agitation. 

“ Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing 
her and you with this hallowed light about you, I have for¬ 
borne, and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man to 
do it. I have felt and do even now feel, that to bring my love 
— even mine—between you is to touch your history with 
something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. Heaven 
is my witness that I love her ! ” 

“ I believe it,” answered her father mournfully. “ I have 
thought so, before now. I believe it.” 

“ But do not believe,” said Darnay, upon whose ear the 
mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound, “that if my 
fortune were so cast, as that, being one day so happy as to make 
her my wife, I must at any time put any separation between her 
and you, I could or would breathe a word of what I now say. 
Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I should know 
it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at a 
remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts and hidden 
in my heart — if it ever had been there — if it ever could be 
there, — I could not now touch this honoured hand.” 

He laid his own upon it as he spoke. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


129 


“No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile 
from France ; like you, driven from it by its distractions, op- 
pressions, and miseries ; like you, striving to live away from it 
by my own exertions, and trusting in a happier future; I look 
only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and 
being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide with Lucie 
her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but to come 
in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be.” 

His touch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering 
the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his 
hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first 
time since the beginning of the conference. A struggle was 
evidently in his face — a struggle with that occasional look 
which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread. 

“ You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, 
that I thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heart 
— or nearly so. Have you any reason to believe that Lucie 
loves you ? ” 

“ None. As yet, none.” 

“ Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may 
at once ascertain that, with my knowledge ? ” 

“ Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it 
for weeks ; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hope¬ 
fulness to-morrow.” 

“ Do you seek any guidance from me 1 ” 

“ I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you 
might have it in your power, if you should deem it right, to 
give me some.” 

“Do you seek any promise from me?” 

“ I do seek that.” 

“What is it?” 

“ I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. 
I well understand that even if Miss Manette held me at this 
moment in her innocent heart, — do not think I have the pre¬ 
sumption to assume so much, ■—I could retain no place in it 
against her love for her father.” 

“ If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is in¬ 
volved in it ? ” 

“ I understand equally well, that a word from her father in 


J30 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


any suitor’s favour would outweigh herself and all the world 
For which reason, Doctor Manette,” said Darnay, modestly but 
firmly, “ I w T ould not ask that word, to save my life.” 

“ I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of 
close love as well as out of wide division; in the former case, 
they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My 
daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me; I 
can make no guess at the state of her heart.” 

“ May I ask, sir, if you think she is ” — As he hesitated, 
her father supplied the rest. 

“ Is sought by any other suitor ? ” 

“It is what I meant to say.” 

Her father considered a little before he answered : — 

“You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here 
too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these.” 

“ Or both,” said Darnay. 

“ I had not thought of both; I should not think either 
likely. You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is.” 

“ It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, 
on her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay 
before you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to 
your belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so well of 
me as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing more of 
my stake in this ; this is what I ask. The condition on which 
I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to inquire, I 
will observe immediately.” 

“ I give the promise,” said the doctor, “ without any condi¬ 
tion. I believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, as 
you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, 
and not to weaken, the ties between me and my other and far 
dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are essential 
to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. If there were 
— Charles Darnay, if there were — ” 

The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands 
were joined as the doctor spoke. 

“ — any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything 
whatsoever, new or old, against the man she really loved, — 
the direct responsibility thereof not lying on his head, — they 
should all be obliterated for her sake. She is everything to 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


131 


me; more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more 
to me — Well ! This is idle talk.” 

So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and 
so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that 
Darnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowly 
released and dropped it. 

“ You said something to me,” said Doctor Manette, breaking 
into a smile. “ What was it you said to me?” 

He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered hav¬ 
ing spoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to 
that, he answered : — 

“ Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full con¬ 
fidence on my part. My present name, though but slightly 
changed from my mother’s, is not, as you will remember, my 
own. I wish to tell you what that is, and why I am in 
England.” 

“ Stop ! ” said the Doctor of Beauvais. 

“ I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, 
and have no secret from you.” 

“ Stop! ” 

For an instant, the doctor even had his two hands at his 
ears; for another instant, even had his two hands laid on Dar- 
nay’s lips. 

“Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should 
prosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your 
marriage morning. Do you promise 1 ” 

“ Willingly.” 

“ Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is 
better she should not see us together to-night. Go! God 
bless you! ” 

It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an 
hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into 
the room alone — for Miss Pross had gone straight up-stairs — 
and was surprised to find his reading-chair empty. 

“ My father ! ” she called to him. “ Father dear! ” 

Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering 
sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate 
room, she looked in at his door and came running back fright- 


132 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled, “ What shall 
I do ! What shall I do ! ” 

Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, ana 
tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased 
at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, 
and they walked up and down together for a long time. 

She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep 
that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools 
and his old unfinished work were all as usual. 


CHAPTER XI 

A COMPANION PICTURE 

“Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or 
morning, to his jackal, “ mix another bowl of punch; I have 
something to say to you.” 

Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the 
night before, and the night before that, and a good many nights 
in succession, making a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver’s 
papers before the setting in of the long vacation. The clearance 
was effected at last; the Stryver arrears were handsomely 
fetched up everything was got rid of until November should 
come with its fogs atmospheric and fogs legal, and bring grist 
to the mill again. 

Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so 
much application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling 
to pull him through the night; a corresponding extra quantity 
of wine had preceded the towelling; and he was in a very 
damaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and threw 
it into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals for the 
last six hours. 

“ Are you mixing that other bowl of punch ? ” said Stryver 
the portly, with his hands in his waistband, glancing round 
from the sofa where he lay on his back. 

“ I am.” 

“ Now, look here ! I am going to tell you something that 
will rather surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


133 


me not quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend 
to marry.” 

“ Do you ? ” 

“ Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?” 

“ I don’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she ? ” 

“ Guess.” 

“ Do I know her ? ” 

“ Guess.” 

“Iam not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, with 
my brains frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me 
to guess, you must ask me to dinner.” 

“Well then, I’ll tell you,” said Stryver, coming slowly into 
a sitting posture. “ Sydney, I rather despair of making myself 
intelligible to you, because you are such an insensible dog.” 

“ And you,” returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, 
“ are such a sensitive and poetical spirit.” 

“ Come ! ” rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, “ though I 
don’t prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope 
I know better), still, I am a tenderer sort of fellow than you” 

“ You are a luckier, if you mean that.” 

“ I don’t mean that. I mean, I am a man of more—more—•” 

“ Say gallantry, while you are about it,” suggested Carton. 

“Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is, that I am a 
man,” said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made 
the punch, “ who cares more to be agreeable, who takes more 
pains to be agreeable, who knows better how to be agreeable, in 
a woman’s society, than you do.” 

“ Go on,” said Sydney Carton. 

“ No ; but before I go on,” said Stryver, shaking his head in 
his bullying way, “ I’ll have this out with you. You have 
been at Doctor Manette’s house as much as I have, or more 
than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your moroseness 
there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen 
and hang-dog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been 
ashamed of you, Sydney ! ” 

“ It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at 
the bar, to be ashamed of anything,” returned Sydney; “ you 
ought to be much obliged to me.” 

“You shall not get off in that way,” rejoined Stryver, shout 


134 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


dering the rejoinder at him ; “No, Sydney, it’s my duty to tel) 
you — and I tell you to your face to do you good — that you 
are a de-vilish ill-conditioned fellow in that sort of society. 
You are a disagreeable fellow.” 

Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and 
laughed. 

“ Look at me ! ” said Stryver, squaring himself; “ I have 
less need to make myself agreeable than you have, being more 
independent in circumstances. Why do I do it ? ” 

“I never saw you do it yet,” muttered Carton. 

“ I do it because it’s politic; I do it on principle. And look 
at me ! I get on.” 

“ You don’t get on with your account of your matrimonial 
intentions,” answered Carton, with a careless air; “I wish you 
would keep to that. As to me — will you never understand 
that I am incorrigible ? ” 

He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. 

“You have no business to be incorrigible,” was his friend’s 
answer, delivered in no very soothing tone. 

“I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,” said 
Sydney Carton. “ Who is the lady ? ” 

“ Now, don’t let my announcement of the name make you 
uncomfortable, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with 
ostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, 
“because I know you don’t mean half you say; and if you 
meant it all, it would be of no importance. I make this little 
preface, because you once mentioned the young lady to me in 
slighting terms.” 

“I did?” 

“ Certainly; and in these chambers.” 

Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his com¬ 
placent friend; drank his punch and looked at his complacent 
friend. 

“You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired 
doll. The young lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a 
fellow of any sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind 
of way, Sydney, I might have been a little resentful of your 
employing such a designation; but you are not. You want that 
sense altogether; therefore, I am no more annoyed when J 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


135 


think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man’s 
opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures; or 
of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.” 

Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by 
bumpers, looking at his friend. 

“ Now you know all about it, Syd,” said Mr. Stryver. “ I 
don’t care about fortune; she is a charming creature, and I 
have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think 
I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man 
already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of 
some distinction; it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she 
is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished 1 ” 

Carton, still drinking the punch, -rejoined, “ Why should I 
be astonished 1 ” 

“You approve ? ” 

Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should I 
not approve ? ” 

“Well!” said his friend Stryver, “you take it more easily 
than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf 
than I thought you would be; though, to be sure, you know 
well enough by this time that your ancient chum is a man of 
a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this 
style of life, with no other as a change from it; I feel that it is 
a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels in¬ 
clined to go to it (when he doesn’t, he can stay away), and I 
feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will 
always do me credit. So I have made up my mind. And 
now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to you about your 
prospects. You are in a bad way, you know ; you really are 
in a bad way. You don’t know the value of money, you live 
hard, you’ll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; 
you really ought to think about a nurse.” 

The prosperous patronage wjth which he said it made him 
look twice as big as he was, and four times as offensive. 

“Now, let me recommend you,” pursued Stryver, “to look 
it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way; 
look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry. Pro¬ 
vide somebody to take care of you. Never mind your having no 
enjoyment of woman’s society, nor understanding of it, nor tact 


136 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


for it. Find out somebody. Find out some respectable woman 
with a little property, — somebody in the landlady way, or lodg¬ 
ing-letting way, — and marry her, against a rainy day. That’s 
the kind of thing for you. Now think of it, Sydney.” 

“ I’ll think of it,” said Sydney. 


CHAPTER XII 

THE FELLOW OF DELICACY 

Mr. Stryver, having made up his mind to that magnanimous 
bestowal of good fortune on the doctor’s daughter, resolved to 
make her happiness known to her before he left town for the 
Long Vacation. After some mental debating of the point, he 
came to the conclusion that it would be as well to get all the 
preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange at their 
leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before 
Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between 
it and Hilary. 

As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, 
but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury 
on substantial worldly grounds — the only grounds ever worth 
taking into account — it was a plain case, and had not a weak 
spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no 
getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw 
up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After 
trying it, Stryver C. J. was satisfied that no plainer case could 
be. 

Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with 
a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; 
that failing, to Ranelagh ; that unaccountably failing too, it 
behoved him to present himself in Soho, and there declare his 
noble mind. 

Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way 
from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s 
infancy was still upon it. Anybody who had seen him project¬ 
ing himself into Soho while he was yet on Saint Dunstan’s side 
of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way along the pave- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 137 

ment, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have seen 
how safe and strong he was. 

His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both hanking at 
Tellson’s and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the 
Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the hank, and 
reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he 
pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stum¬ 
bled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and 
shouldered himself into the musty hack closet where Mr. Lorry 
sat at great hooks ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron 
bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and 
everything under the clouds were a sum. 

“ Halloa ! ” said Mr. Stryver. “ How do you do ? I hope 
you are well! ” 

It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too 
big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tell- 
son’s, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of 
remonstrance, as though he squeezed them against the wall. 
The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the 
far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head 
had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. 

The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he 
would recommend under the circumstances, “ How do you do, 
Mr. Stryver ? How do you do, sir ? ” and shook hands. 
There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always 
to be seen in any clerk at Tellson’s who shook hands with a 
customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a 
self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. 

“ Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver ? ” asked Mr. Lorry, 
in his business character. 

“ Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, 
Mr. Lorry; I have come for a private word.” 

“ Oh, indeed ! ” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while 
his eye strayed to the House afar off. 

“ I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confiden¬ 
tially on the desk, — whereupon, although it was a large double 
one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him, — “I 
am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agree¬ 
able little friend Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.” 


138 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Oh, dear me ! ” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and 
looking at his visitor dubiously. 

“Oh, dear me, sir? ” repeated Stryver, drawing back. “Oh, 
dear you, sir ? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry ? ” 

“ My meaning,” answered the man of business, “is, of course 
friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest 
credit, and — in short, my meaning is everything you could 
desire. But — really, you know, Mr. Stryver ” — Mr. Lorry 
paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if 
he were compelled against his will to add, internally, “you know 
there really is so much too much of you ! ” 

“ Well! ” said Stryver, slapping the desk with his conten¬ 
tious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath. 
“ if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I’ll be hanged ! ” 

Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means 
towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen. 

“ D—n it all, sir! ” said Stryver, staring at him, “ am I not 
eligible ? ” 

“ Oh, dear, yes ! Yes. Oh, yes, you’re eligible ! ” said Mr. 
Lorry. “ If you say eligible, you are eligible.” 

“ Am I not prosperous ? ” asked Stryver. 

“ Oh ! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous,” said 
Mr. Lorry. 

“ And advancing ? ” 

“If you come to advancing, you know,” said Mr. Lorry, 
delighted to be able to make another admission, “ nobody can 
doubt that.” 

“Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” de¬ 
manded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen. 

“ Well! I — Were you going there now ? ” asked Mr. Lorry. 

“ Straight! ” said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. 

“ Then I think I wouldn’t, if I was you.” 

“Why?” said Stryver. “Now, I’ll put you in a corner,” 
forensically shaking a forefinger at him. “You are a man of 
business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why 
wouldn’t you go ? ” 

“ Because,” said Mr. Lorry, “ I wouldn’t go on such an 
object without having some cause to believe that I should suc¬ 
ceed.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


139 


“D—n me!” cried Stryver, “but this beats everything.” 

Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the 
angry Stryver. 

“ Here’s a man of business — a man of years — a man of ex¬ 
perience — in a Bank,” said Stryver; “ and having summed up 
three leading reasons for complete success, he says there’s no 
reason at all! Says it with his head on! ” Mr. Stryver 
remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have been infinitely 
less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. 

“ When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young 
lady; and when I speak of causes and reasons to make success 
probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such 
with the young lady. The young lady, my good sir,” said Mr. 
Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, — “ the young lady. 
The young lady goes before all.” 

“ Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver, 
squaring his elbows, “ that it is your deliberate opinion that the 
young lady at present in question is a mincing Fool ? ” 

“Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver,” said Mr. 
Lorry, reddening, “that I will hear no disrespectful word of 
that young lady from any lips; and that if I knew any man 
-—which I hope I do not — whose taste was so coarse, and 
whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain 
himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at this 
desk, not even Tellson’s should prevent my giving him a piece of 
my mind.” 

The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put 
Mr. Stryver’s blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was 
his turn to be angry; Mr. Lorry’s veins, methodical as their 
courses could usually be, were in no better state now it was his turn. 

“That is what I mean to tell you, sir,” said Mr. Lorry. 
“ Pray let there be no mistake about it.” 

Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and 
then stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably 
gave him the toothache. He broke the awkward silence by 
saying: — 

“ This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately 
advise me not to go up to Soho and offer myself — myself, Stryver 
of the King’s Bench bar ? ” 


140 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Bo you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver ? ” 

“ Yes, I do.” 

“Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it 
correctly.” 

“And all I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a vexed 
laugh, “ that this -— ha, ha ! — beats everything past, present, 
and to come.” 

“Now understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry. “As a man of 
business, I am not justified in saying anything about this mat¬ 
ter, for, as a man of business, I know nothing of it. But, as 
an old fellow, who has carried Miss Manette in his arms, who 
is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and of her father too, and 
who has a great affection for them both, I have spoken. The 
confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I 
may not be right 1 ” 

“ Not I! ” said Stryver, whistling. “ I can’t undertake to 
find third parties in common sense; I can only find it for 
myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters; you suppose 
mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It’s new to me, but you 
are right, I dare say.” 

“ What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for 
myself. And understand me, sir,” said Mr. Lorry, quickly 
flushing again. “I will not — not even at Tellson’s — have 
it characterised for me by any gentleman breathing.” 

“ There ! I beg your pardon ! ” said Stryver. 

“ Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about 
to say: it might be painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it 
might be painful to Doctor Manette to have the task of being 
explicit with you, it might be very painful to Miss Manette to 
have the task of being explicit with you. You know the 
terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand 
with the family. If you please, committing you in no way, 
representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct my 
advice by the exercise of a little new observation and judgment 
expressly brought to bear upon it. If you should then be dis¬ 
satisfied with it, you can but test its soundness for yourself; 
if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied with it, and it 
should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is best 
spared. What do you say ? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


141 


‘ ‘i How long would you keep me in town ? ” 

“ Oh ! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to 
Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers afterwards.” 

“ Then I say yes,” said Stryver; “ I won’t go up there now, 
I am not so hot upon it as that comes to • I say yes, and I 
shall expect you to look in to-night. Good morning.” 

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing 
such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand 
up against it bowing behind the two counters required the 
utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks. Those 
venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public in 
the act of bowing, and were popularly believed, when they 
had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in the 
empty office until they bowed another customer in. 

The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker 
would not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any 
less solid ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was 
for the large pill he had to swallow, he got it down. “ And 
now,” said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the 
Temple in general, when it was down, “ my way out of this is 
to put you all in the wrong.” 

It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which 
he found great relief. “You shall not put me in the wrong, 
young lady,” said Mr. Stryver; “I’ll do that for you.” 

Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten 
o’clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers 
littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his 
mind than the subject of the morning. He even showed sur¬ 
prise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was altogether in an absent 
and preoccupied state. 

“ Well! ” said that good-natured emissary, after a full half 
hour of bootless attempts to bring him round to the question, 
“ I have been to Soho.” 

“ To Soho?” repeated Mr. Stryver coldly. “Oh, to be sure ! 
What am I thinking of! ” 

“ And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, “ that I was right 
in the conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I 
reiterate my advice.” 

“ I assure you,” returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way. 


142 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the 
poor father’s account. I know this must always be a sore sub¬ 
ject with the family; let us say no more about it.” 

“ I don’t understand you,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ I dare say not,” rejoined Mr. Stryver, nodding his head in 
a smoothing and final way; “no matter, no matter.” 

“ But it does matter,” Mr. Lorry urged. 

“No, it doesn’t; I assure you it doesn’t. Having supposed 
that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable 
ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out 
of my mistake, and no harm is done. Young women have com¬ 
mitted similar follies often before, and have repented them in 
poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish aspect, I 
am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been 
a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish 
aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it 
would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of 
view—it is hardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing 
by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not proposed to 
the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means cer¬ 
tain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to 
that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vani¬ 
ties and giddinesses of empty-headed girls ; you must not expect 
to do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say 
no more about it. I tell you, I regret it on account of others, 
but I am satisfied on my own account. And I am really very 
much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for 
giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I 
do; you were right, it never would have done.” 

Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly 
at Mr. Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an 
appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and good-will, 
on his erring head. “ Make the best of it, my dear sir,” said 
Stryver; “ say no more about it; thank you again for allowing 
me to sound you ; good night! ” 

Mr. Lorry was out in the night before he knew where he 
was. Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his 
ceiling. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


143 


CHAPTER XIII 

THE FELLOW OF NO DELICACY 

If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never 
shone in the house of Doctor Manette. He had been there 
often, during a whole year, and had always been the same 
moody and morose lounger there. When he cared to talk, he 
talked well; but the cloud of caring for nothing, which over¬ 
shadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced 
by the light within him. 

And yet he did care something for the streets that environed 
that house, and for the senseless stones that made their pave¬ 
ments. Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered 
there, when wine had brought no transitory gladness to him; 
many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary figure lingering 
there, and still lingering there when the first beams of the sun 
brought into strong relief removed beauties of architecture in 
spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time 
brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattain¬ 
able, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple 
court had known him more scantily than ever; and often when 
he had thrown himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, 
he had got up again, and haunted that neighbourhood. 

On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to 
his jackal that “he had thought better of that marrying mat¬ 
ter ”) had carried his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the 
sight and scent of flowers in the city streets had some waifs of 
goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sickliest, and 
of youth for the oldest, Sydney’s feet still trod those stones. 
From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became animated 
by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, they 
took him to the doctor’s door. 

He was shown up stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. 
She had never been quite at her ease with him, and received 
him with some little embarrassment as he seated himself near 
her table. But looking up at his face in the interchange of the 
first few common-places, she observed a change in it. 


144 


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“ I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton ! ” 

“ No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive 
to health. What is to be expected of, or by, such profligates?” 

“Is it not — forgive me; I have begun the question on my 
lips — a pity to live no better life ? ” 

“ God knows it is a shame ! ” 

“ Then why not change it ? ” 

Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened 
to see that there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in 
his voice, too, as he answered : — 

“ It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. 
I shall sink lower, and be worse.” 

He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with 
his hand. The table trembled in the silence that followed. 

She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. 
He knew her to be so, without looking at her, and said : — 

“ Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the 
knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will you hear me? ” 
“ If it will do you any good. Mr. Carton, if it would make 
you happier, it would make me very glad ! ” 

“ God bless you for your sweet compassion ! ” 

He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. 
“ Don’t be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I 
say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have 
been.” 

“ No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might 
still be; I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of 
yourself.” 

“ Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better, — 
although in the mystery of my own wretched heart I know bet¬ 
ter, — I shall never forget it! ” 

She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a 
fixed despair of himself which made the interview unlike any 
other that could have been holden. 

“ If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have 
returned the love of the man you see before you, — self-flung 
away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know 
him to be, — he would have been conscious this day and hour, 
in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


145 


bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, disgrace you, 
pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have 
no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that 
it cannot be.” 

“Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not 
recall you — forgive me again ! — to a better course ? Can I 
in no way repay your confidence? I know this is a confidence,” 
she modestly said, after a little hesitation, and in earnest tears, 
“ I know you would say this to no one else. Can I turn it to 
no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton ? ” 

He shook his head. 

“To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear 
me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is 
done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream 
of my soul. In my degradation, I have not been so degraded 
but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home, 
made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I 
thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been 
troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me 
again, and I have heard whispers from old voices impelling me 
upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had un¬ 
formed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off 
sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A 
dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper 
where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.” 

“Will nothing of it remain? Oh, Mr. Carton, think again ! 
Try again! ” 

“No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to 
be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and 
have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a 
sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into 
fire — a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself; 
quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly 
burning away.” 

“ Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you 
more unhappy than you were before you knew me — ” 

“ Don’t say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed 
me, if anything could. You will not be the cause of my be¬ 
coming worse.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


m 


“ Since the state of your mind that you describe is, at all 
events, attributable to some influence of mine, — this is what I 
mean, if I can make it plain, — can I use no influence to serve 
you 1 Have I no power for good, with you, at all ? ” 

“ The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, 
I have come here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of 
my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart 
to you, last of all the world; and that there was something- 
left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity.” 

“ Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most 
fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. 
Carton ! ” 

“ Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have 
proved myself, and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast 
to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, 
that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and 
innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared 
by no one 1 ” 

“ If that will be a consolation to you, yes.” 

“ Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you ? ” 

“ Mr. Carton,” she answered, after an agitated pause, “ the 
secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.” 

“ Thank you. And again, God bless you.” 

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. 

“ Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resum¬ 
ing this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will 
never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer 
than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall hold 
sacred the one good remembrance — and shall thank and bless 
you for it — that my last avowal of myself was made to you, 
and that my name, and faults, and miseries, were gently carried 
in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy ! ” 

He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and 
it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how 
much he every day kept down aud perverted, that Lucie Ma¬ 
nette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her. 

“ Be comforted ! ” he said, “ I am not worth such feeling, 
Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions 
and low habits that I scorn, but yield to, will render me less 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


147 


worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps along 
the streets. Be comforted! But within myself, I shall 
always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I 
shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplica¬ 
tion but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me.” 

“ I will, Mr. Carton.” 

“ My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will 
relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have 
nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an im¬ 
passable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out 
of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do 
anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was 
any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace 
any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold 
me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in 
this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long 
in coming, when new ties will be formed about you — ties that 
will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you 
so adorn — the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden 
you. 0 Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy 
father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright 
beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that 
there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love 
beside you?” 

He said, “ Farewell! ” said, “ A last God bless you ! ” and 
left her. 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE HONEST TRADESMAN 

To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool 
in Fleet Street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number 
and variety of objects in movement were every day presented. 
Who could sit upon anything in Fleet Street during the busy 
hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two iim 
mense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the 
other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending ttf 


148 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun 
goes down! 

With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the 
two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several cen¬ 
turies been on duty watching one stream — saving that Jerry 
had no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it 
have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part 
of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women 
(mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from 
Tellson’s side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such 
companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher 
never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a 
strong desire to have the honour of drinking her very good 
health. And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards 
the execution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited his 
finances, as just now observed. 

Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and 
mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in 
a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, 
and looked about him. 

It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds 
were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in gen¬ 
eral were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in 
his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been “flopping” in 
some pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down 
Fleet Street westward attracted his attention. Looking that 
way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was 
coming along, and that there was popular objection to this 
funeral, which engendered uproar. 

“Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, 
“ it’s a buryin\” 

“ Hooroar, father ! ” cried Young Jerry. 

The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mys¬ 
terious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, 
that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentle¬ 
man on the ear. 

“ What d’ye mean ? What are you hooroaring at ? What 
do you want to convey to your own father, you young Rip? 
This boy is getting too many for me!” said Mr. Cruncher, 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


149 


surveying him. “ Him and his hooroars ! Don’t let me hear 
no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D’ye 
hear ? ” 

“ I warn’t doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing 
his cheek. 

“ Drop it then,” said Mr. Cruncher; “ I won’t have none of 
your no harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the 
crowd.” 

His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawl¬ 
ing and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning- 
coach, in which mourning-coach there was only one mourner, 
dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential 
to the dignity of the position. The position appeared by no 
means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble sur¬ 
rounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and 
incessantly groaning and calling out: “ Yah ! Spies ! Tst! 
Yaha ! Spies! ” with many compliments too numerous and 
forcible to repeat. 

Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. 
Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and became excited, 
when a funeral passed Tellson’s. Naturally, therefore, a funeral 
with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, and he 
asked of the first man who ran against him: — 

“ What is it, brother ? What’s it about ? ” 

“ / don’t know,” said the man. “ Spies ! Yaha ! Tst! 
Spies ! ” 

He asked another man, “ Who is it ? ” 

“I don’t know,” returned the man: clapping his hands to 
his mouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat 
and with the greatest ardour, “ Spies ! Yaha! Tst, tst! 
Spi-ies! ” 

At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, 
tumbled against him, and from this person he learned that the 
funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly. 

“ Was He a spy ? ” asked Mr. Cruncher. 

“ Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. “ Yaha ! Tst! 
Yah ! Old Bailey spi-i-ies ! ” 

“ Why, to be sure ! ” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at 
which he had assisted. “ I’ve seen him. Dead, is he ? ” 


150 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Dead as mutton,” returned the other, “and can’t be too 
dead. Have ’em out, there! Spies ! Pull ’em out, there ! 
Spies ! ” 

The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any 
idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly 
repeating the suggestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em out, 
mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop. 
On the crowd’s opening the coach doors, the one mourner 
scuffled out of himself and w T as in their hands for a moment; 
but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, that 
in another moment he was scouring away up a by-street, after 
shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handker¬ 
chief, and other symbolical tears. 

These, the people tore to pieces, and scattered far and wide 
with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up 
their shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and 
was a monster much dreaded. They had already got the length 
of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter 
genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination 
amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much 
needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and 
the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen 
out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as 
could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the 
first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who 
modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of 
Tellson’s, in the further corner of the mourning-coach. 

The officiating undertakers made some protest against these 
changes in the ceremonies; but the river being alarmingly near, 
and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion 
in bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the 
protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started, 
with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse, — advised by the 
regular driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspec¬ 
tion, for the purpose, — and with a pieman, also attended by his 
cabinet-minister, driving the mourning-coach. A bear-leader, a 
popular street character of the time, was impressed as an addi¬ 
tional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the 
Strand; and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


151 


quite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which 
he walked. 

Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and 
infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its 
way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up 
before it. Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, 
far off in the fields. It got there in course of time ; insisted 
on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, accomplished the 
interment of the deceased Eoger Cly in its own way, and 
highly to its own satisfaction. 

The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the 
necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, 
another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the 
humour of impeaching casual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, 
and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some 
scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old 
Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and they 
were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the 
sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of 
public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several 
hours, when sundry summer-houses had been pulled down, and 
some area railings had been torn up, to arm the more belliger¬ 
ent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were coming. 
Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and 
perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and 
this was the usual progress of a mob. 

Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had 
remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with 
the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. 
He procured a pipe from a neighbouring public-house, and 
smoked it, looking in at the railings and maturely considering 
the spot. 

“ Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his 
usual way, “you see that there Cly that day, and you see with 
your own eyes that he was a young 5 un and a straight made 
’un.” 

Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, 
he turned himself about, that he might appear, before the hour 
of closing, on his station at Tellson’s. Whether his medita- 


152 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


tions on mortality had touched his liver, or whether his general 
health had been previously at all amiss, or whether he desired 
to show a little attention to an eminent man, is not so much 
to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical 
adviser — a distinguished surgeon — on his way back. 

Young Jerry relieved his lather with dutiful interest, and 
reported No job in his absence. The Bank closed, the ancient 
clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher 
and his son went home to tea. 

“ Now, I tell you where it is! ” said Mr. Cruncher to his 
wife, on entering. “ If, as a honest tradesman, my wentures 
goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying 
agin me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen 
you do it.” 

The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. 

“ Why, you’re at it afore my face ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, with 
signs of angry apprehension. 

“ I am saying nothing.” 

“ Well then, don’t meditate nothing. You might as well 
flop as meditate. You may as well go agin me one way as 
another. Drop it altogether.” 

“Yes, Jerry.” 

“ Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher, sitting down to tea. 
“ Ah ! It is yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes, 
Jerry.” 

Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky cor¬ 
roborations, but made use of them, as people not unfrequently 
do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction. 

“You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite 
out of his bread and butter, and seeming to help it down with a 
large invisible oyster out of his saucer. “ Ah ! I think so. I 
believe you.” 

“You are going out to-night?” asked his decent wife, when 
he took another bite. 

“Yes, I am.” 

“ May I go with you, father? ” asked his son briskly. 

“ No, you mayn’t. I’m a going — as your mother knows — 
a fishing. That’s where I’m going to. Going a fishing.” 

“ Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty ; don’t it, father ? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


153 


lt Never you mind.” 

“ Shall you bring any fish home, father ? ” 

“If I don’t, you’ll have short commons to-morrow,” returned 
that gentleman, shaking his head; “ that’s questions enough for 
you; I ain’t a going out, till you’ve been long abed.” 

He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to 
keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly 
holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from 
meditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view, 
he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the 
unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of 
complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would 
leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest 
person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of 
an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It 
was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened 
by a ghost story. 

“ And mind you ! ” said Mr. Cruncher. “No games to¬ 
morrow ! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing a 
jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and stick¬ 
ing to bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to provide 
a little beer, none of your declaring on water. W T hen you go to 
Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, 
if you don’t. I’m your Rome, you know.” 

Then he began grumbling again : — 

“With your flying into the face of your own wittles and 
drink ! I don’t know how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles 
and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling con¬ 
duct. Look at your boy: he is your’n, ain’t he ? He’s as 
thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know 
that a mothei’s first duty is to blow her boy out?” 

This touched Young Jerry on a tender place ; who adjured 
his mother to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did 
or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the dis¬ 
charge of that maternal function so affectingly and delicately 
indicated by his other parent. 

Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until 
Young Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under 
similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the 


154 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


earlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did not 
start upon his excursion until nearly one o’clock. Towards that 
small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, took a key 
out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth 
a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other 
fishing-tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about 
him in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. 
Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out. 

Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when 
he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of 
the darkness he followed out of the room, followed down the 
stairs, followed down the court, followed out into the streets. 
He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house 
again, for it was full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar all 
night. 

Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery 
of his father’s honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to 
house-fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one 
another, held his honoured parent in view. The honoured 
parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was 
joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged 
on together. 

Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond 
the winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and 
were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up 
here—and that so silently, that if Young Jerry had been su¬ 
perstitious, he might have supposed the second follower of the 
gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself into two. 

The three went on, and Young Jerry went on until the three 
stopped under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of 
the bank was a low brick wall surmounted by an iron railing. 
In the shadow of bank and wall, the three turned out of the 
road, and up a blind lane, of which the wall — there, risen to 
some eight or ten feet high — formed one side. Crouching 
down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that 
Young Jerry saw was the form of his honoured parent, pretty 
well defined against a watery and clouded moon,' nimbly scaling 
an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman 
got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 155 

ground within the gate, and lay there a little — listening per¬ 
haps. Then, they moved away on their hands and knees. 

It was now Young Jerry’s turn to approach the gate: which 
he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner 
there, and looking in, he made out the three fishermen creeping 
through some rank grass; and all the gravestones in the church¬ 
yard — it was a large churchyard that they were in — looking 
on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself looked 
on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not creep 
far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they 
began to fish. 

They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured 
parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great 
corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked 
hard, until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified 
Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his 
father’s. 

But his long-cherished desire to know more about these 
matters, not only stopped him in his running away, but lured 
him back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when 
he peeped in at the gate for the second time; but now they 
seemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing and complain¬ 
ing sound down below, and their bent figures were strained, as 
if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the 
earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well 
knew what it would be; but when he saw it, and saw his hon¬ 
oured parent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, 
being new to the sight, that he made off again, and never 
stopped until he had run a mile or more. 

He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary 
than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one 
highly desirable to get to the end of He had a strong idea 
that the coffin he had seen was running after him ; and, pic¬ 
tured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright upon its narrow 
end, always on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at 
his side — perhaps taking his arm — it was a pursuer to shun. 
It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for while it was 
making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into 
the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping 


156 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


out of them like a dropsical boy’s-Kite without tail and wings. 
It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against 
doors, and drawing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. 
It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on its back 
to trip him up. All this time, it was incessantly hopping on 
behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy got to his 
own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then it 
would not leave him, but followed him up stairs with a bump 
on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, 
dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep. 

From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was 
awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence 
of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong 
with him; at least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the circum¬ 
stance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking 
the back of her head against the headboard of the bed. 

“I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “ and I did.” 

“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry ! ” his wife implored. 

“You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said 
Jerry, “and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour 
and obey; why the devil don’t you ? ” 

“I’ll try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman pro¬ 
tested, with tears. 

“ Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business ?• 
Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it 
obeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject of 
his business?” 

“ You hadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.” 

“ It’s enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, “ to be the 
wife of a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female 
mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he 
didn’t. A honouring and obeying wife would let his trade 
alone altogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you’re 
a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have no 
more nat’ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames 
River has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into 
you.” 

The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and 
terminated in the honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay-soiled 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


157 


boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After taking 
a timid peep at him, lying on his back, with his rusty hand 
under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell 
asleep again. 

There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything 
else. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, 
and kept an iron pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correc¬ 
tion of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms 
of her saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the 
usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible 
calling. 

Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his 
father’s side along sunny and crowded Fleet Street, was a very 
different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, running 
home through darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer. 
His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone 
with the night — in which particulars it is not improbable 
that he had compeers in Fleet Street and the City of London, 
that fine morning. 

“ Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along, taking 
care to keep at arm’s length and to have the stool well between 
them, “ what’s a Resurrection-Man ? ” 

Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he 
answered, “ How should I know' ? ” 

“ I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless 
boy. 

“ Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, 
and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, “he’s a 
tradesman.” 

“ What’s his goods, father 1 ” asked the brisk Young Jerry. 

“ His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his 
mind, “ is a branch of Scientific goods.” 

“ Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father?” asked the lively boy. 

“ I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher. 

“ Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when 
I’m quite growed up ! ” 

Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious 
and moral way. “ It depends upon how you dewelop your 
talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say 


158 


A TALE OB’ TWO CITIES 


no more than you can help to nobody, and there’s no telling at 
the present time what you may not come to be fit for.” As 
Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, 
to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher 
added to himself: “ Jerry, you honest tradesman, there’s hopes 
wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense 
to you for his mother ! ” 


CHAPTER XV 

KNITTING 

There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine¬ 
shop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’clock in the 
morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had 
descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine. 
Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, 
but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he 
sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its 
influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them 
gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the 
pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge; but a smouldering fire that 
burnt in the dark lay hidden in the dregs of it. 

This had been the third morning in succession on which 
there had been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur 
Defarge. It had begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday 
come. There had been more of early brooding than drinking; 
for many men had listened and whispered and slunk about 
there from the time of the opening of the door, who could not 
have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. 
These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if 
they could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they 
glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing 
talk in lieu of drink, with greedy looks. 

Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of 
the wine-shop was not visible. He was not missed; for no¬ 
body who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked 
for him, nobody wondered to see only Madame Defarge in her 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


159 


seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of bat¬ 
tered small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of 
their original impress as the small coinage of humanity from 
whose ragged pockets they had come. 

A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind were 
perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, 
as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the king’s 
palace to the criminal’s jail. Games at cards languished, play¬ 
ers at dominoes musingly built towers with them, drinkers 
drew figures on the tables with spilt drops of wine, Madame 
Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her 
toothpick, and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible 
a long way off. 

Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until mid¬ 
day. It was high noontide, when two dusty men passed through 
his streets and under his swinging lamps, of whom, one was 
Monsieur Defarge; the other, a mender of roads in a blue cap. 
All adust and athirst, the two entered the wine-shop. Their 
arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, 
fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and flickered 
in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one 
had followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the 
wine-shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned 
upon them. 

“ Good day, gentlemen ! ” said Monsieur Defarge. 

It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. 
It elicited an answering chorus of “ Good day ! ” 

“It is bad weather, gentlemen,” said Defarge, shaking his 
head. 

Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then 
all cast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who 
got up and went out. 

“ My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge, 
“I have travelled certain leagues with this good mender of 
roads, called Jacques. I met him — by accident—a day and 
a half’s journey out of Paris. He is a good child, this mender 
of roads, called Jacques. Give him to drink, my wife ! ” 

A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set 
wine before the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his 


160 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


blue cap to the company, and drank. In the breast of his 
blouse, he carried some coarse dark bread; he ate of this 
between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near Madame 
Defarge’s counter. A third man got up and went out. 

Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine, — but he 
took less than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man 
to whom it was no rarity, — and stood waiting until the country¬ 
man had made his breakfast. He looked at no one present, 
and no one now looked at him; not even Madame Defarge, 
who had taken up her knitting, and was at work. 

“ Have you finished your repast, friend 1 ” he asked, in due 
season. 

“ Yes, thank you.” 

“ Come then ! You shall see the apartment that I told you 
you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.” 

Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a 
courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the 
staircase into a garret — formerly the garret where a white- 
haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, 
making shoes. 

No white-haired man was there now ; but the three men 
were there who had gone out of the wine-shop singly. And 
between them and the white-haired man afar off was the one 
small link, that they had once looked in at him through the 
chinks in the wall. 

Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued 
voice: — 

“Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the 
witness encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four, 
He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Five ! ” 

The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy 
forehead with it, and said, “ Where shall I commence, mon¬ 
sieur ? ” 

“ Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable 
reply, “at the commencement.” 

“I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, 
“ a year ago this running summer, underneath the carriage of 
the Marquis, hanging by the chain. Behold the manner of it. 
I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to bed, the car- 



faces within, bending over measures of wine. 





































































































































































































































































































. 






























A TALE OF TWO CITIES 161 

riage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanging by 
the chain — like this.” 

Again, the mender of roads went through the old perform¬ 
ance ; in which he ought to have been perfect by that time, 
seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensable 
entertainment of his village during a whole year. 

Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the 
man before. 

“ Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering his 
perpendicular. 

Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognized him 
then ? 

“ By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and 
with his finger at his nose. “ When Monsieur the Marquis 
demands that evening, ‘Say, what is he like?’ I make response, 
‘ Tall as a spectre.’ ” 

“You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned Jacques Two. 

“ But what did I know! The deed was not then accom¬ 
plished, neither did he confide in me. Observe ! Under those 
circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony. Monsieur 
the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing near our 
little fountain, and says, ‘ To me ! Bring that rascal! ’ My 
faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.” 

“He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him 
who had interrupted. “ Go on ! ” 

“ Good ! ” said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. 
“ The tall man is lost, and he is sought — how many months ? 
Nine, ten, eleven ? ” 

“ No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “ He is well 
hidden, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on ! ” 

“ I am again at work upon the hillside, and the sun is again 
about to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my 
cottage down in the village below, where it is already dark, 
when I raise my eyes, and see coming over the hill, six soldiers. 
In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms bound — tied 
to his sides, like this ! ” 

With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man 
with his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were 
knotted behind him. 


162 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the 
soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, 
where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as 
they approach, I see no more than that they are six soldiers with 
a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sight — 
except on the side of the sun going to bed, where they have a 
red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are 
on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the road, and are on 
the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I 
see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves 
with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they 
advance quite near to me, I recognise the tall man, and he 
recognises me. Ah, but he would be well content to precipi¬ 
tate himself over the hillside once again, as on the evening 
when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot! ” 

He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that 
he saw it vividly ; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. 

“ I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man ; 
he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, 
and we know it, with our eyes. ‘ Come on ! ’ says the chief of 
that company, pointing to the village, ‘bring him fast to his 
tomb ! ’ and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are 
swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden shoes are 
large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, and 
consequently slow, they drive him with their guns — like this ! ” 
He imitate 1 the action of a man’s being impelled forward 
by the butt-end3 of muskets. 

“ As they descended the hill like madmen running a race, he 
falls. They lau*h an l pick him up again. His face is bleeding 
and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they 
laugh again. They brings him into the village; all the village 
runs to look; they take him past the mill, and up to the prison ; 
all the village sees the prison gate open in the darkness of the 
night, and swallow him — like this ! ” 

He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a 
sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to 
mar the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, “ Go on, 
Jacques.” 

“All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe, 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


163 


and in a low voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by 
the fountain; all the village sleeps ; all the village dreams of 
that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on 
the crag, and never to come out of it, except to perish. In the 
morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of 
black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on my way 
to my work. There, I see him, high up, behind the bars of a 
lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. 
He has no hand free, to wave to me ; I dare not call to him; 
he regards me like a dead man.” 

Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The 
looks of all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as 
they listened to the countryman’s story; the manner of all of 
them, while it was secret, was authoritative too. They had the 
air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the 
old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting on his hand, and his 
eyes intent on the road mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, 
on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding 
over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; 
Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he had 
stationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him 
to them and from them to him. 

“ Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge. 

“ He remains up there, in his iron cage, some days. The vil¬ 
lage looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always 
looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the 
evening when the wmrk of the day is achieved and it assembles 
to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. 
Formerly, they were turned towards the posting-house; now, 
they are turned towards the prison. They whisper at the foun¬ 
tain, that although condemned to death he will not be executed ; 
they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing 
that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; 
they say that a petition has been presented to the king himself. 
What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.” 

“ Listen, then, Jacques,” Number One of that name sternly 
interposed. “ Know that a petition was presented to the king 
and queen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the king take it, 
in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the queen. It is 


164 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his life 
darted out before the horses, with the petition in his hand.” 

“And once again listen, Jacques!” said the kneeling Num¬ 
ber Three, his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine 
nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for some¬ 
thing — that was neither food nor drink; “ the guard, horse and 
foot, surrounded the petitioner, and struck him blows. You 
near ?” 

“ I hear, messieurs.” 

“Go on, then,” said Defarge. 

“Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,” 
resumed the countryman, “ that he is brought down into our 
country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very cer¬ 
tainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has 
slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of 
his tenants — serfs — what you will — he will be executed as a 
parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right 
hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; 
that, into woun Is which will be made in his arms, his breast 
and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot 
resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from 
limb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was 
actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of 
the last King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies ! 
I am not a scholar.” 

“Listen once again then, Jacques !” said the man with the 
restless hand and the craving air. “ The name of that prisoner 
was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open 
streets of this city of Paris ; and nothing was more noticed in 
the vast concourse that saw it done than the crowd of ladies of 
quality and fashion, who were full of eager attention to the last 

— to the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had 
lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed ! And it was done 

— why, how old are you?” 

“ Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. 

“ It was done when you were more than ten years old; you 
might have seen it.” 

“ Enough ! ” said Def&rge, with grim impatience. “ Long live 
the Devil! Gq qb/ 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


165 


“Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak 
of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. 
At length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come 
soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on 
the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, 
soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there 
is raised a gallows forty feet high poisoning the water.” 

The mender of roads looked through rather than at the low 
ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the 
sky. 

“All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the 
cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At mid-day, the roll 
of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, 
and he is in the midst of many soldiers. He is bound as before, 
and in his mouth there is a gag — tied so, with a tight string, 
making him look almost as if he laughed.” He suggested it, by 
creasing his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his 
mouth to his ears. “ On the top of the gallows is fixed the 
knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged 
there forty feet high — and is left hanging, poisoning the water.” 

They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe 
his face, on which the perspiration had started afresh while he 
recalled the spectacle. 

“ It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the 
children draw water! Who can gossip of an evening, under 
that shadow ! Under it, have I said 1 When I left the village, 
Monday evening as the sun was going to bed, and looked back 
from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, across the 
mill, across the prison — seemed to strike across the earth, 
messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it! ” 

The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at 
the other three, and his finger quivered with the craving that 
was on him. 

“ That’s all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned 
to do), and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I 
met (as I was warned I should) this comrade. With him, J 
came on, now riding and now walking, through the rest of yes¬ 
terday and through last night. And here you see me ! ” 

After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, “ Hood. You 


166 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


have acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a 
little, outside the door ? ” 

“ Very willingly,” said the mender of roads. Whom De- 
farge escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, 
returned. 

The three had risen, and their heads were together when he 
came back to the garret. 

“ How say you, Jacques ? ” demanded Number One. “ To be 
registered ? ” 

“To be registered, as doomed to destruction,” returned 
Defarge. 

“ Magnificent! ” croaked the man with the craving. 

“The chateau, and all the race?” inquired the first. 

“ The chateau, and all the race,” returned Defarge. “Ex¬ 
termination.” 

The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, “ Magnifi¬ 
cent ! ” and began gnawing another finger. 

“Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “that no 
embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping the 
register ? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond our¬ 
selves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher 
it — or, I ought to say, will she ? ” 

“Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “if ma- 
dame my wife undertook to keep the register in her memory 
alone, she would not lose a word of it — not a syllable of it. 
Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will 
always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame 
Defarge. It would be easier- for the weakest poltroon that 
lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter 
of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame 
Defarge.” 

There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then 
the man who hungered, asked: “Is this rustic to be sent 
back soon ? I hope so. He is very simple; is he not a little 
dangerous ? ” 

“ He knows nothing,” said Defarge; “ at least nothing more 
than would easily elevate him to a gallows of the same height. 

I charge myself with him; let him remain with me; I will 
take care of him, and set him on his road. He wishes to see 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


167 


the fine world — the King, the Queen, and Court; let him see 
them on Sunday.” 

“ What 1 ” exclaimed the hungry man, staring. “ Is it a 
good sign, that he wishes to see Royalty and Nobility?” 

“Jacques,” said Defarge; “judiciously show a cat milk, if 
you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natu¬ 
ral prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day.” 

Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found 
already dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself 
down on the pallet-bed and take some rest. He needed no 
persuasion, and was soon asleep, 

Worse quarters than Defarge’s wine-shop could easily have 
been found in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. Sav¬ 
ing for a mysterious dread of madame by which he was con¬ 
stantly haunted, his life was very new and agreeable. But 
madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of 
him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that his 
being there had any connection with anything below the sur¬ 
face, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted 
on her. For he contended with himself that it was impossible 
to foresee what that lady might pretend next; and he felt 
assured that if she should take it into her brightly ornamented 
head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and after¬ 
wards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through with it 
until the play was played out. 

Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not 
enchanted (though he said he was) to find that madame was tc 
accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was addi¬ 
tionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way 
there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally disconcerting 
yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with 
her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the car¬ 
riage of the King and Queen, 

“ You work hard, madame,” said a man near her. 

“Yes,” ansv/ered Madame Defarge; “I have a good deal 
to do." 

“ What do you make, madame ? ” 

“ Many things.” 

“ For instance — ” 


168 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“For instance,” returned Madame Defarge composedly. 
“ shrouds.” 

The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, 
and the mender of roads fanned himself with his blue cap: 
feeling it mightily close and oppressive. If he needed a King 
and Queen to restore him, he was fortunate in having his 
remedy at hand ; for soon the large-faced King and the fair¬ 
faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the shin¬ 
ing Bull’s Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing 
ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and 
splendour and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely dis¬ 
dainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, 
so much to his temporary intoxication, that he cried Long live 
the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and every¬ 
thing ! as if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his 
time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terraces, fountains, 
green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull’s Eye, more 
lords and ladies, more Long live they all! until he absolutely 
wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which 
lasted some three hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping 
and sentimental company, and throughout Defarge held him by 
the collar, as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his 
brief devotion and tearing them to pieces. 

“ Bravo ! ” said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it 
was over, like a patron ; “ you are a good boy ! ” 

The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was 
mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations ; 
but no. 

“You are the fellow we want,” said Defarge, in his ear; 
“you make these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, 
they are the more insolent, and it is the nearer ended.” 

“ Hey ! ” cried the mender of roads reflectively; “ that’s 

true.” 

“ These fools know nothing. While they despise your 
breath, and would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a 
hundred like you rather than in one of their own horses or 
dogs, they only know what your breath tells them. Let it 
deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot deceive them too 
much.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 169 

Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and 
nodded in confirmation. 

“ As to you,” said she, “ you would shout and shed tears for 
anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you 
not r 

“ Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment.” 

“ If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon 
them to pluck them to pieces ahd despoil them for your own 
advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say ! 
Would you not ? ” 

“ Truly yes, madame.” 

“ Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to 
fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for 
your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest 
feathers; would you not 1 ” 

“It is true, madame.” 

“You have seen both dolls and birds to-day,” said Madame 
Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they 
had last been apparent; “ now, go home ! ” 


CHAPTER XVI 

STILL KNITTING 

Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned 
amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a 
blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, 
and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly 
tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of 
Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whis¬ 
pering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for 
listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village 
scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of 
dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone court¬ 
yard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved 
fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour 
just lived in the village — had a faint and bare existence there, 
as its people had — that when the knife struck home, the faces 


170 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, 
that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above 
the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being 
avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the 
stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the 
murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculp¬ 
tured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had 
seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three 
ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep 
at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not 
have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away 
among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who 
could find a living there. 

Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain 
on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well — 
thousands of acres of land— a whole province of France — all 
France itself — lay under the night sky, concentrated into a 
faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its 
greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as 
mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the 
manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in 
the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, 
every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. 

The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the 
starlight, in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris where- 
unto their journey naturally tended. There was the usual 
stoppage at the barrier guard-house, and the usual lanterns came 
glancing forth for the usual examination and inquiry. Mon¬ 
sieur Defarge alighted, knowing one or two of the soldiery 
there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate with, 
and affectionately embraced. 

When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his 
dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint’s 
boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black 
mud and offal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her 
husband:— 

“Say, then, my friend, what did Jacques of the police tell 
thee? ” 

"Very little to-night s but all ho knows. There is another 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 171 

spy commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, 
for all that he can say, but he knows of one.” 

“ Eh, well! ” said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows 
with a cool business air. “It is necessary to register him. 
How do they call that man ? ” 

“ He is English.” 

“ So much the better. His name ? ” 

“Barsad,” said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation, 
But he had been so careful to get it accurately, that he then 
spelt it with perfect correctness. 

“ Barsad,” repeated madame. “ Good. Christian name 1 ” 

“ John.” 

“John Barsad,” repeated madame, after murmuring it once 
to herself. “ Good. His appearance; is it known 1 ” 

“ Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black 
hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; 
eyes dark, face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not 
straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek; 
expression, therefore, sinister.” 

“ Eh, my faith. It is a portrait! ” said madame, laughing. 
“ He shall be registered to-morrow.” 

They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was 
midnight), and where Madame Defarge immediately took her 
post at the desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken 
during her absence, examined the stock, went through the 
entries in the book, made other entries of her own, checked the 
serving-man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to 
bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl of money 
for the second time, and began knotting them up in her hand¬ 
kerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through 
the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, 
walked up and down, complacently admiring, but never inter¬ 
fering ; in which condition, indeed, as to the business and his 
domestic affairs, he walked up and down through life. 

The night w T as hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded 
by so foul a neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur De- 
farge’s olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the stock 
of wine smelt much stronger than it ever tasted, and so did 
the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He whiffed the 


172 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


compound of scents away as he put down his smoked-out 
pipe. 

“You are fatigued,” said madame, raising her glance as she 
knotted the money. “ There are only the usual odours.” 

“I am a little tired,” her husband acknowledged. 

“You are a little depressed, too,” said madame, whose quick 
eyes had never been so intent on the accounts, but they had 
had a ray or two for him. “ Oh, the men, the men ! ” 

“ But, my dear,” began Defarge. 

“ But, my dear ! ” repeated madame, nodding firmly : “ but. 
my dear ! You are faint of heart to-night, my dear ! ” 

“Well, then,” said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out 
of his breast, “ it is a long time.” 

“ It is a long time,” repeated his wife; “ and when is it not 
a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; 
it is the rule.” 

“ It does not take a long time to strike a man with Light¬ 
ning,” said Defarge. 

“ How long,” demanded madame composedly, “ does it take 
to make and store the lightning ? Tell me ? ” 

Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were some¬ 
thing in that, too. 

“ It does not take a long time,” said madame, “ for an earth¬ 
quake to swallow a town. Eh, well! Tell me how long it 
takes to prepare the earthquake ? ” 

“ A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge. 

“ But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces 
everything before it. In the mean time, it is always preparing, 
though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. 
Keep it.” 

She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a 
foe. 

“ I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for 
emphasis, “ that although it is a long time on the road, it is on 
the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never 
stops. I tell thee it is always advancing. Look around and 
consider the lives of all the world that we know, consider the 
faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and dis¬ 
content to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


173 


more of certainty every hour. Can such things last ? Bah ! 
I mock you.” 

“My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her 
with his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, 
like a docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, “ I do not 
question all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is pos¬ 
sible — you know well, my wife, it is possible — that it may 
not come during our lives.” 

“ Eh, well! How then ? ” demanded madame, tying another 
knot, as if there were another enemy strangled. 

“Well!” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half 
apologetic shrug. “We shall not see the triumph.” 

“We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her 
extended hand in strong action. “ Nothing that we do is 
done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see 
the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, 
show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I 
would — ” 

There madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot 
indeed. 

“ Hold! ” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt 
charged with cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at 
nothing.” 

“ Yes ! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to 
see your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain 
yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger 
and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil 
chained — not shown — yet always ready.” 

Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by 
striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she 
knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handker¬ 
chief under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it 
was time to go to bed. 

Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place 
in the wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside 
her, and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with 
no infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There were a few 
customers, drinkifig or not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled 
about. The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were 


174 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions into 
all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the 
bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies 
out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as 
if they themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), 
until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless 
flies are ! — perhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny 
summer day. 

A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame 
Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She laid down her 
knitting, and began to pin her rose in her head-dress, before she 
looked at the figure. 

It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the 
rose, the customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop 
out of the wine-shop. 

“ Good day, madame,” said the new-comer. 

“ Good day, monsieur.” 

She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed hei 
knitting: “ Hah ! Good day, age about forty, height about 
five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, 
complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and sallow face, aquiline 
nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the 
left cheek which imparts a sinister expression ! Good day, one 
and all! ” 

“ Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, 
and a mouthful of cool fresh water, madame.” 

Madame complied with a polite air. 

“ Marvellous cognac this, rtladame ! ” 

It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and 
Madame Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know bet¬ 
ter. She said, however, that the cognac was flattered, and took 
up her knitting. The visitor watched her fingers for a few 
moments,, and took the opportunity of observing the place in 
general. 

“ You knit with great skill, madame.” 

“ I am accustomed to it.” 

“ A pretty pattern too ! ” 

“ You think so 1 ” said madame, looking at bim with a smile. 

u Decidedly. May onfe ask what it is for % ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


175 


“ Pastime,” said madame, looking at him with a smile, while 
her fingers moved nimbly. 

“Not for use?” 

“ That depends. I may find a use for it, one day. If I do 
■— well,” said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head 
with a stern kind of coquetry, “ I’ll use it! ” 

It was remarkable; but the taste of Saint Antoine seemed 
to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame 
Defarge. Two men had entered separately, and had been 
about to order drink, when, catching sight of that novelty, 
they faltered, made a pretence of looking about as if for some 
friend who was not there, and went away. Nor, of those who 
had been there when this visitor entered, was there one left. 
They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, 
but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away 
in a poverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite 
natural and unimpeachable. 

“John,” thought madame, checking off her work as her 
fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. “ Stay 
long enough, and I shall knit ‘ Barsad ’ before you go.” 

“You have a husband, madame?” 

“I have.” 

“ Children?” 

“No children.” 

“ Business seems bad ? ” 

“ Business is very bad ; the people are so poor.” 

“ Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people ! So oppressed too 
— as you say.” 

“ As you say,” madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly 
knitting an extra something into his name that boded him no 
good. 

“ Pardon me ; certainly it was I who said so, but you natu¬ 
rally think so. Of course.” 

“ I think ? ” returned madame, in a high voice. “ I and my 
husband have enough to do to keep this wine-shop open, with¬ 
out thinking. All we think, here, is, how to live. That is 
the subject we think of, and it gives us, from morning to night, 
enough to think about, without embarrassing our heads com 
cerning others. 1 think for others? No, no.” 


176 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find 
or make, did not allow his baffled state to express itself in his 
sinister face, but stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, lean¬ 
ing his elbow on Madame Defarge’s little counter, and occasion' 
ally sipping his cognac. 

“ A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard’s execution. 
Ah ! the poor Gaspard ! ” With a sigh of great compassion. 

“ My faith ! ” returned madame, coolly and lightly, “ if 
people use knives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. 
He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was; he has 
paid the price.” 

“ I believe,” said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone 
that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary 
susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face, — “I believe 
there is much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, 
touching the poor fellow? Between ourselves.” 

“ Is there ? ” asked madame vacantly. 

“ Is there not ? ” 

“ — Here is my husband ! ” said Madame Defarge. 

As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy 
saluted him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging 
smile, “Good day, Jacques!” Defarge stopped short, and 
stared at him. 

“ Good day, Jacques! ” the spy repeated, with not quite so 
much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. 

“You deceive yourself, monsieur,” returned the keeper of the 
wine-shop. “You mistake me for another. That is not my 
name. I am Ernest Defarge.” 

“It is all the same,” said the spy, airily, but discomfited 
too; “ good day ! ” 

“ Good day ! ” answered Defarge drily. 

“ I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of 
chatting when you entered, that they tell me there is — and no 
wonder ! — much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touch¬ 
ing the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard.” 

“ No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. 
“ I know nothing of it.” 

Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood 
with his hand on the back of his wife’s chair, looking over that 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


177 


barrier at the person to whom they were both opposed, and whom 
either of them would have shot with the greatest satisfaction. 

The spy, well used to his business, did not change his uncon¬ 
scious attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip 
of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame 
Defarge poured it out for him, took to her knitting again, and 
hummed a little song over it. 

“ You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better 
than I do 1 ” observed Defarge. 

“ Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so pro¬ 
foundly interested in its miserable inhabitants.” 

“ Hah ! ” muttered Defarge. 

“ The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, 
recalls to me,” pursued the spy, “ that I have the honour of 
cherishing some interesting associations with your name.” 

“Indeed?” said Defarge, with much indifference. 

“Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you his 
old domestic had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered 
to you. You see I am informed of the circumstances ? ” 

“ Such is the fact, certainly,” said Defarge. He had had it 
conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as 
she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but 
always with brevity. 

“It was to you,” said the spy, “that his daughter came; 
and it was from your care that his daughter took him, accom¬ 
panied by a neat brown monsieur; how is he called 1 — in a 
little wig — Lorry — of the bank of Tellson and Company — 
over to England.” 

“ Such is the fact,” repeated Defarge. 

“ Very interesting remembrances ! ” said the spy. “ I have 
known Doctor Manette and his daughter, in England.” 

“Yes,” said Defarge. 

“You don’t hear much about them now,” said the spy. 

“ No,” said Defarge. 

“In effect,” madame struck in, looking up from her work 
and her little song, “ we never hear about them. We received 
the news of their safe arrival, and perhaps another letter or per¬ 
haps two; but since then, they have gradually taken their road 
in life — we, ours — and we have held no correspondence.” 


178 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Perfectly so, madame,” replied the spy. “ She is going to 
be married.” 

“ Going 1 ” echoed madame. “ She was pretty enough to have 
been married long ago. You English are cold, it seems to me.” 

“ Oh ! You know I am English ? ” 

“I perceive your tongue is,” returned madame; “and what 
the tongue is, I suppose the man is.” 

He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he 
made the best of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sip¬ 
ping his cognac to the end, he added: — 

“Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an 
Englishman ; to one who, like herself, is French by birth. And 
speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard ! It was cruel, cruel!), 
it is a curious thing that she is going to marry the nephew of 
Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was exalted to that 
height of so many feet: in other words, the present Marquis. But 
he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is Mr. 
Charles Darnay. D’Aulnais is the name of his mother’s family.” 

Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a 
palpable effect upon her husband. Do what he would, behind 
the little counter, as to the striking of a light and the lighting 
of his pipe, he was troubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. 
The spy would have been no spy if he had failed to see it, or to 
record it in his mind. 

Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove 
to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any 
other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and took his 
leave; taking occasion to say, in a genteel manner, before he 
departed, that he looked forward to the pleasure of seeing Mon¬ 
sieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutes after he 
had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the hus¬ 
band and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he 
should come back. 

“ Can it be true,” said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down 
at his wife as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of 
her chair, “ what he has said of Ma’amselle Manette ? ” 

“As he has said it,” returned madame, lifting her eyebrows 
a little, “ it is probably false. But it may be true.” 

“ If it is ” — Defarge began, and stopped. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


179 


“ If it is ? ” repeated his wife. 

“ — And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph — 
I hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of 
France.” 

“Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her 

usual composure, “ will take him where he is to go, and will 

lead him to the end that is to end him. That is all I know.” 

“ But it is very strange — now, at least is it not very 

strange ” — said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to in¬ 
duce her to admit it, “ that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur 
her father and herself, her husband’s name should be proscribed 
under your hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal 
dog’s who has just left us?” 

“ Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,” 
answered madame. “ I have them both here, of a certainty ; 
and they are both here for their merits; that is enough.” 

She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, 
and presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was 
wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinc¬ 
tive sense that the objectionable decoration was gone, or Saint 
Antoine was on the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the 
Saint took courage to lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and 
the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. 

In the evening, at which season, of all others, Saint Antoine 
turned himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window- 
ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a 
breath of air, Madame Defarge, with her work in her hand, 
was accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to 
group : a Missionary — there were many like her — such as 
the world will do well never to breed again. All the women 
knitted. They knitted worthless things; but the mechanical 
work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the 
hands moved for the jaws and the digestive apparatus; if the 
bony fingers had been still, the stomachs would have been more 
famine-pinched. 

But as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. 
And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all 
three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of 
women that she had spoken with, and left behind. 


X80 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with 
admiration. “A great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, a 
grand woman, a frightfully grand woman.” 

Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church 
bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the 
Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Dark¬ 
ness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as 
surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many 
an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering 
cannon ; when the military drums should be beating to drown a 
wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and 
Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the 
women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves 
were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were 
to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads. 


CHAPTER XVII 

ONE NIGHT 

Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the 
quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when the 
doctor and his daughter sat under the plane-tree together. 
Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over great 
London, than on that night when it found them still seated 
under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves. 

Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this 
last evening for her father, and they sat alone under the plane- 
tree. 

“You are happy, my dear father?” 

“ Quite, my child.” 

They had said little, though they had been there a long time. 
When it was yet light enough to work and read, she had neither 
engaged herself in her usual work, nor had she read to him. 
She had employed herself in both ways, at his side under the 
tree, many and many a time ; but this time was not quite like 
any other, and nothing could make it so. 

“ And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


181 


happy in the love that Heaven has so blessed my love for Charles, 
and Charles’s love for me. But if my life .were not to be still 
consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so arranged as that 
it would part us, even by the length of a few of these streets, 
I should be more unhappy and self-reproachful now, than I 
can tell you. Even as it is — ” 

Even as it was, she could not command her voice. 

In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid 
her face upon his breast. In the moonlight, which is always 
sad, as the light of the sun itself is — as the light called human 
life is — at its coming and its going. 

“ Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you 
feel quite, quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new 
duties of mine, will ever interpose between us? / know it 
well, but do you know it? In your own heart, do you feel 
quite certain ? ” 

Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction 
he could scarcely have assumed, “ Quite sure, my darling! 
More than that,” he added, as he tenderly kissed her; “ my 
future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, than 
it could have been — nay, than it ever was — without it.” 

“ If I could hope that , my father ! — ” 

“ Believe it, love ! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural 
and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, de¬ 
voted and young, cannot fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt 
that your life should not be wasted — ” 

She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his. 
and repeated the word. 

“—wasted, my child — should not be wasted, struck aside 
from the natural order of things — for my sake. Your un¬ 
selfishness cannot entirely comprehend how much my mind has 
gone on this ; but only ask yourself, how could my happiness 
be perfect, while yours was incomplete ? ” 

“ If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been 
quite happy with you.” 

He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have 
been unhappy without Charles, having seen him, and replied: — 
“ My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had 
not been Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it had 


182 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


been no other, I should have been the cause, and then the dark 
part of my life would have cast its shadow beyond myself, and 
would have fallen on you.” 

It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing 
him refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange 
and new sensation while his words were in her ears; and she 
remembered it long afterwards. 

“ See ! ” said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand tow¬ 
ards the moon. “I have looked at her from my prison win¬ 
dow, when I could not bear her light. I have looked at her 
when it has been such torture to me to think of her shining 
upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against my 
prison walls. I have looked at her in a state so dulled and 
lethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number of 
horizontal lines I could draw across her at the full, and the 
number of perpendicular lines with which I could intersect 
them.” He added, in his inward and pondering manner, as he 
looked at the moon, “ It was twenty either way, I remember, 
and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in.” 

The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that 
time deepened as he dwelt upon it; but there was nothing to 
shock her in the manner of his reference. He only seemed 
to contrast his present cheerfulness and felicity with the dire 
endurance that was over. 

“ I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon 
the unborn child from whom I had been rent. Whether it was 
alive. Whether it had been born alive, or the poor mother’s 
shock had killed it. Whether it was a son who would some 
day avenge his father. (There was a time in my imprisonment 
when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it 
was a son who would never know his father’s story; who might 
even live to weigh the possibility of his father’s having disap¬ 
peared of his own will and act. Whether it was a daughter, 
who would grow to be a woman.” 

She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand. 

“ I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forget¬ 
ful of me—rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious 
of me. I have cast up the years of her age, year after year. I 
have seen her married to a man who knew nothing of my fate. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 183 

I have altogether perished from the remembrance of the living, 
and in the next generation my place was a blank.” 

“ My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a 
daughter who never existed strikes to my heart as if I had been 
that child.” 

“You, Lucie? It is out of the consolation and restoration 
you have brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and 
pass between us and the moon on this last night. — What did I 
say, just now ? ” 

“ She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you.” 

“ So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness 
and the silence have touched me in a different way, — have 
affected me with something as like a sorrowful sense of peace as 
any emotion that had pain for its foundations could, — I have 
imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and leading me out 
into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen her image 
in the moonlight, often, as I now see you ; except that I never 
held her in my arms; it stood between the little grated win¬ 
dow and the door. But you understand that that was not the 
child I am speaking of?” 

“ The figure was not; the — the — image ; the fancy ? ” 

“No. That was another thing. It stood before my dis¬ 
turbed sense of sight, but it never moved. The phantom that 
my mind pursued was another and more real child. Of her 
outward appearance I know no more than that she was like her 
mother. The other had that likeness too,-—as you have,— 
but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie ? Hardly, I 
think? I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to 
understand these perplexed distinctions.” 

His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from 
running cold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition. 

“ In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the 
moonlight, coming to me and taking me out to show me that 
the home of her married life was full of her loving remem¬ 
brance of her lost father. My picture was in her room, and I 
was in her prayers. Her life was active, cheerful, useful; but 
my poor history pervaded it all.” 

“I was that child, my father. I was not half so good, but 
in my love that was I.” 


184 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ And she showed me her children,” said the Doctor of 
Beauvais, “ and they had heard of me, and had been taught to 
pity me. When they passed a prison of the State, they kept 
far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, and spoke 
in whispers. She could never deliver me; I imagined that she 
always brought me back after showing me such things. But 
then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, and 
blessed her.” 

“I am that child, I hope, my father. Oh, my dear, my 
dear, will you bless me as fervently to-morrow ? ” 

“ Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have 
to-night for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking 
God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they were 
wildest, never rose near the happiness that I have known with 
you, and that we have before us.” 

He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and 
humbly thanked Heaven for having bestowed her on him. By 
and by, they went into the house. 

There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; 
there was even to be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. 
The marriage was to make no change in their place of resi¬ 
dence ; they had been able to extend it, by taking to themselves 
the upper rooms formerly belonging to the apocryphal invisible 
lodger, and they desired nothing more. 

Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They 
were only three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He 
regretted that Charles was not there; was more than half dis¬ 
posed to object to the loving little plot that kept him away; 
and drank to him affectionately. 

So the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they 
separated. But in the stillness of the third hour of the morn¬ 
ing, Lucie came down stairs again, and stole into his room: 
not free from unshaped fears, beforehand. 

All things, however, were in their places ; all was quiet; and 
he lay asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pil¬ 
low, and his hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her 
needless candle in the shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, 
and put her lips to his; then, leaned over him and looked at 
him. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


185 


Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had 
worn; but he covered up their tracks with a determination so 
strong, that he held the mastery of them, even in his sleep. A 
more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle 
with an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all the wide 
dominions of sleep, that night. 

She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a 
prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired 
to be, and as his sorrows deserved. Then she withdrew her 
hand, and kissed his lips once more, and went away. So the 
sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves of the plane-tree 
moved upon his face, as softly as'her lips had moved in praying 
for him. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

NINE DAYS 

The marriage day was shining brightly, and they were ready 
outside the closed door of the doctor’s room, where he was 
speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to 
church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross — to 
whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement 
to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but for 
the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should 
have been the bridegroom. 

“ And so,” said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire 
the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every 
point of her quiet, pretty dress; “ and so it was for this, my 
sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a 
baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought what I was 
doing. How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring 
on my friend Mr. Charles ! ” 

“You didn’t mean it,” remarked the matter-of-fact Miss 
Pross, “and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!” 

“Really? Well; but don’t cry,” said the gentle Mr. Lorry. 

“ I am not crying,” said Miss Pross ; “ you are.” 

“I, my Pross?” (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be 
pleasant with her, on occasion.) 


186 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ You were just now; I saw you do it, and I don’t wonder 
at it. Such a present of plate as you have made ’em is enough 
to bring tears into anybody’s eyes. There’s not a fork or a 
spoon in the collection,” said Miss Pross, “that I didn’t cry 
over, last night after the box came, till I couldn’t see it.” 

“I am highly gratified,” said Mr. Lorry, “though, upon my 
honour, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of 
remembrance, invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an 
occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear, 
dear, dear ! To think that there might have been a Mrs. 
Lorry, any time these fifty years almost! ” 

“ Not at all! ” From Miss Pross. 

“You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?” 
asked the gentleman of that name. 

“Pooh!” rejoined Miss Pross; “you were a bachelor in 
your cradle.” 

“ Well! ” observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little 
wig, “ that seems probable too ! ” 

“ And you were cut out for a bachelor,” pursued Miss Pross, 
“ before you were put in your cradle.” 

“Then, I think,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was very un¬ 
handsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in 
the selection of my pattern. Enough ! Now, my dear Lucie,” 
drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, “ I hear them 
moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal 
folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity 
of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave 
your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as 
your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; during 
the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and there¬ 
abouts, even Tellson’s shall go to the wall (comparatively 
speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight’s end, he 
comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other 
fortnight’s trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him 
to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I 
hear Somebody’s step coming to the door. Let me kiss my 
dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Some¬ 
body comes to claim his own.” 

For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


187 


well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the 
bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine 
tenderness and delicacy, which, if such things be old fashioned, 
were as old as Adam. 

The door of the doctor’s room opened, and he came out with 
Charles Darnay. He was so deadly pale — which had not been 
the case when they went in together — that no vestige of colour 
was to be seen in his face. But in the composure of his man¬ 
ner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. 
Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of 
avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold 
wind. 

He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down stairs 
to the chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. 
The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighbour¬ 
ing church where no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay 
and Lucie Manette were happily married. 

Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the 
little group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and 
sparkling, glanced on the bride’s hand, which were newly re¬ 
leased from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry’s pockets. 
They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in due 
course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor shoe¬ 
maker’s white locks in the Paris garret, was mingled with them 
again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the door at 
parting. 

It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her 
father cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself 
from her enfolding arms, “ Take her, Charles ! She is yours ! ” 
And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, 
and she was gone. 

The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and 
the preparations having been very simple and few, the doctor, 
Mr. Lorry, and Miss Press, were left quite alone. It was when 
they turned into the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that 
Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come over the doc¬ 
tor; as if the golden arm uplifted there had struck him a 
poisoned blow. 

He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might 


188 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


have been expected in him when the occasion for repression 
was gone. But it was the old scared lost look that troubled 
Mr. Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasping his head 
and drearily wandering away into his own room when they got 
up stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge, the wine-shop 
keeper, and the starlight ride. 

“ I think,” he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious con¬ 
sideration, “ I think we had best not speak to him just now, 
or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson’s; so I will 
go there at once and come back presently. Then we will take 
him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will be 
well.” 

It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson’s, than to 
look out of Tellson’s. He was detained two hours. When he 
came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked 
no question of the servant; going thus into the doctor’s rooms, 
he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. 

“ G-ood God ! ” he said, with a start. “ What’s that ? ” 

Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. “ Oh me! 
Oh me ! All is lost! ” cried she, wringing her hands. “What 
is to be told to Ladybird ? He doesn’t know me, and is mak¬ 
ing shoes! ” 

Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself 
into the doctor’s room. The bench was turned towards the 
light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his 
work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very 
busy. 

“ Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette ! ” 

The doctor looked at him for a moment — half inquiringly, 
half as if he were angry at being spoken to — and bent over 
his work again. 

He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open 
at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and 
even the old haggard faded surface of face had come back to 
him. He worked hard — impatiently — as if in some sense 
of having been interrupted. 

Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed 
that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up 
another that was lying by him, and asked him what it was. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


189 


“ A young lady’s walking shoe,” he muttered, without look¬ 
ing up. “ It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be.” 

“ But, Doctor Manette. Look at me ! ” 

He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, with¬ 
out pausing in his work. 

“You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is 
not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend ! ” 

Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up 
for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so ; but 
no persuasion could extract a tford from him. He worked, and 
worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they 
would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The 
only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover was, that he 
sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. . In that, 
there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity — as 
though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. 

Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as 
important above all others; the first, that this must be kept 
secret from Lucie; the second, that it must be kept secret 
from all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he 
took immediate steps towards the latter precaution, by giving 
out that the doctor was not well, and required a few days of 
complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on 
his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having 
been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary 
letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented 
to have been addressed to her by the same post. 

These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry 
took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that should hap¬ 
pen soon, he kept another course in reserve ; which was, to 
have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on the doctor’s 
case. 

In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course 
being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch 
him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing 
so. He therefore made Arrangements to absent himself from 
Tellson’s for the first time in his life, and took his post by the 
window in the same room. 

He was not long in discovering that it was worse than use- 


190 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


less to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. 
He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved 
merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent protest 
against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. 
He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and 
writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways 
as he could think of, that it was a free place. 

Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, 
and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to see — 
worked on, half an hour after Sir. Lorry could not have seen, 
for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as 
useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said to him : —- 
“ Will you go out ? ” 

He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old 
manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old 
low voice : — 

“Out?” 

“Yes; for a walk with me. Why not ? ” 

He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. 
But Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his 
bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head 
in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself, 
“ Why not ? ” The sagacity of the man of business perceived 
an advantage here, and determined to hold it. 

Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and 
observed him at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced 
up and down for a long time before he lay down; but when he 
did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the morning, 
he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench and to work. 

On this second day Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by 
his name, and spoke to him on topics that had been of late 
familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident 
that he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, 
however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss 
Pross in with her work, several times during the day ; at those 
times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then 
present, precisely in their usual manner, and as if there were 
nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative 
accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


191 


him ; and it lightened Mr. Lorry’s friendly heart to believe that 
he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by 
some perception of inconsistencies surrounding him. 

When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him, as before : — 
“ Dear Doctor, will you go out ? ” 

As before, he repeated, “Out?” 

“ Yes; for a walk with me. Why not ? ” 

This time Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract 
no answer from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, 
returned. In the mean while, the doctor had removed to the s^at 
in the window, and had sat there looking down at the plane- 
tree ; but on Mr. Lorry’s return, he slipped away to his bench. 

The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry’s hope dark¬ 
ened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier 
and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the 
fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days, 
nine days. 

With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always grow¬ 
ing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious 
time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious 
and happy; but he could not fail to observe that the shoe¬ 
maker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing 
dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on his 
work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, 
as in the dusk of the ninth evening. 


CHAPTER XIX 

AN OPINION 

Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his 
post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled 
by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber 
had overtaken him when it was dark night. 

He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, 
when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For 
going to the door of the doctor’s room and looking in, he per¬ 
ceived that the shoemaker’s bench and tools were put aside 


192 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


again, and that the doctor himself sat reading at the window. 
He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr. 
Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly 
studious and attentive. 

Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. 
Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the 
late snoefnaking might not be a disturbed dream of his own; 
for did not his eyes show him his friend before him in his 
accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual; and 
was there any sign within their range, that the change of which 
he had so strong an impression had actually happened? 

It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonish¬ 
ment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not 
produced by a real corresponding and sufficient cause, how came 
he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen asleep in 
his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette’s consulting-room, 
and to be debating these points outside the doctor’s bedroom 
door in the early morning? 

Within a few minutes Miss Pross stood whispering at his 
side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would 
of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clear¬ 
headed, and had none. He advised that they should let the 
time go by until the regular breakfast hour, and should then 
meet the doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred. If he 
appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry would 
then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from the 
opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. 

Miss Pross submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme 
was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his 
usual methodical toilet, Mr. Lorry presented himself at tne 
breakfast hour in his usual white linen and with his usual neat 
leg. The doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came to 
breakfast. 

So far as it was possible to comprehend him without over^ 
stepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry 
felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed that his 
daughter’s marriage had taken place yesterday. An incidental 
allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the 
day of the month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


193 


made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was so 
composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid 
he sought. And that aid was his own. 

Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, 
and he and the doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said feel¬ 
ingly : — 

“ My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in 
confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply inter¬ 
ested ; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps to your 
better information it may be less so.” 

Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late 
work, the doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He 
had already glanced at his hands more than once. 

“Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, touching him affection¬ 
ately on the arm, “ the case is the case of a particularly dear 
friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well 
for his sake — and above all for his daughter’s — his daughter’s, 
my dear Manette.” 

“ If I understand,” said the doctor, in a subdued tone, “ some 
mental shock — ? ” 

“Yes!” 

“ Be explicit,” said the doctor. “ Spare no detail.” 

Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and pro¬ 
ceeded. 

“ My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged 
shock, of great acuteness and severity, to the affections, the 
feelings, the — the — as you express it — the mind. The mind. 
It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne 
down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he cannot 
calculate the time himself, and there are no other means of 
getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer 
recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself—as I 
once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is the 
case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as 
to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of 
mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making 
fresh additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already 
very large. But, unfortunately, there has been ” — he paused 
and tock a deep breath — “a slight relapse.” 


194 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The doctor, in a low voice, asked, “ Of how long duration ?” 

“Nine days and nights.” 

“How did it show itself ? I infer,” glancing at his hands 
again, “ in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with 
the shock ? ” 

“ That is the fact.” 

“ Now, did you ever see him,” asked the doctor, distinctly 
and collectedly, though in the same low voice, “engaged in 
that pursuit originally ? ” 

“ Once.” 

“ And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects 
— or in all respects — as he was then ? ” 

“ I think, in all respects.” 

“ You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of 
the relapse ? ” 

“No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always 
be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one 
other who may be trusted.” 

The doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, “That was 
very kind. That was very thoughtful! ” Mr. Lorry grasped his 
hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little while. 

“ Now, my dear Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his 
most considerate and most affectionate way, “ I am a mere man 
of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult 
matters. I do not possess the kind of information necessary; 
I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want guiding. 
There is no man in this world on whom I could so rely for 
right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse 
come about ? Is there danger of another ? Could a repeti¬ 
tion of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be 
treated? How does it come about at all? What can I do 
for my friend ? No man ever can have been more desirous in 
his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, if I knew 
how. But I don’t know how to originate, in such a case. If 
your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me on the 
right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened and 
undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it with me ; pray 
enable me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how tc 
be a little more useful.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 195 

Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were 
spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press, him. 

“ I think it probable,” said the doctor, breaking silence with 
an effort, “ that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, 
was not quite unforeseen by its subject.” 

“Was it dreaded by him?” Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. 

“Very much.” He said it with an involuntary shudder. 
“You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the 
sufferer’s mind, and how difficult — how almost impossible — 
it is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic 
that oppresses him.” 

“ Would he,” asked Mr. Lorry, “ be sensibly relieved if he 
could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to 
any one, when it is on him ? ” 

“ I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impos¬ 
sible. I even believe it — in some cases — to be quite impos¬ 
sible.” 

“Now,” said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the 
doctor’s arm again, after a short silence on both sides, “ to what 
would you refer this attack ? ” 

“I believe,” returned Doctor Manette, “that there had been 
a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and 
remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. Some 
intense associations of a most distressing nature were vividly 
recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long been a 
dread lurking in his mind, that those associations would be re¬ 
called — say, under certain circumstances — say, on a particular 
occasion. He tried to prepare himself, in vain; perhaps the 
effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it.” 

“Would he remember what took place in the relapse?” 
asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation. 

The doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, 
and answered, in a low voice, “Not at all.” 

“Now, as to the future,” hinted Mr. Lorry. 

“As to the future,” said the doctor, recovering firmness, “I 
should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to 
restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding 
under the pressure of a complicated something, long dreaded 
and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, and recover- 


196 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ing after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope that the 
worst was over.” 

“ Well, well! That’s good comfort. I am thankful! ” said 
Mr. Lorry. 

“ I am thankful! ” repeated the doctor, bending his head 
with reverence. 

“There are two other points,” said Mr. Lorry, “ on which I 
am anxious to be instructed. I may go on ? ” 

“ You cannot do your friend a better service.” The doctor 
gave him his hand. 

“ To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually 
energetic ; he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisi¬ 
tion of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, 
to many things. Now, does he do too much ? ” 

“ I think not. It may be the character of his mind to be 
always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, 
natural to it; in part, the result of affliction. The less it was 
occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in danger 
of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have observed 
himself, and made the discovery.” 

“ You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?” 

“ I think I am quite sure of it.” 

“ My dear Manette, if he were overworked now — ” 

“ My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has 
been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counter¬ 
weight.” 

“ Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for 
a moment, that he was overworked; it would show itself in 
some renewal of this disorder ? ” 

“I do not think so. I do not think,” said Doctor Manette 
with the firmness of self-conviction, “that anything but the 
one train of association would renew it. I think that, hence¬ 
forth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord 
could renew it. After what has happened, and after his recov¬ 
ery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding of 
that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the cm 
cumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.” 

He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight 
a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


197 


yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assur¬ 
ance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his 
friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more 
relieved and encouraged than he really was, and approached his 
second and last point. He felt it to be the most difficult of all; 
but remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with 
Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the last nine 
days, he knew that he must face it. 

“ The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing 
affliction so happily recovered from,” said Mr. Lorry, clearing 
his throat, “ we will call — Blacksmith’s work, Blacksmith’s 
work. We will say, to put a case and for the sake of illustra¬ 
tion, that he had been used in his bad time to work at a little 
forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly found at his 
forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him ? ” 

The doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his 
foot nervously on the ground. 

“ He has always kept it by him,” said Mr. Lorry, with an 
anxious look at his friend. “ Now, would it not be better that 
he should let it go ? ” 

Still, the doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot ner¬ 
vously on the ground. 

“You do not find it easy to advise me?” said Mr. Lorry. 
“ I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think ” 
— And there he shook his head, and stopped. 

“You see,” said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an 
uneasy pause, “ it is very hard to explain, consistently, the 
innermost working of this poor man’s mind. He once yearned 
so frightfully for that , occupation, and it was so welcome when 
it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting 
the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and 
by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of 
the hands for the ingenuity of the mental torture, that he has 
never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of 
his reach. Even now when, I believe, he is more hopeful of 
himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with 
a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that old em¬ 
ployment, and not find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like 
that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child.” 


198 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. 
Lorry’s face. 

“ But may not — mind ! I ask for information, as a plod¬ 
ding man of business who only deals with such material objects 
as guineas, shillings, and bank-notes — may not the retention 
of the thing involve the retention of the idea ? If the thing 
were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it? 
In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the 
forge?” 

There was another silence. 

“ You see, too,” said the doctor tremulously, “ it is such an 
old companion.” 

“ I would not keep it,” said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; 
for he gained in firmness as he saw the doctor disquieted. “ I 
would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want your 
authority. I am sure it does no good. Come ! Give me your 
authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter’s sake, my 
dear Manette! ” 

Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him ! 

“ In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But I 
would not take it away while he was present. Let it be 
removed when he is not there; let him miss his old companion 
after an absence.” 

Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was 
ended. They passed the day in the country, and the doctor 
was quite restored. On the three following days, he remained 
perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day, he went away to join 
Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been taken 
io account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously explained 
to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and 
she had no suspicions. 

On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. 
Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and 
hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with 
closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry 
hacked the shoemaker’s bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held 
the candle as if she were assisting at a murder — for which, 
indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The 
burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


199 


for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitcnen 
fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather were buried in the 
garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest 
minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the 
commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost 
felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime. 


CHAPTER XX 

A PLEA 

When the newly married pair came home, the first person 
who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. 
They had not been at home many hours, when he presented 
himself. He was not improved in habits, or in looks, or in 
manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about 
him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay. 

He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a 
window, and of speaking to him when no one overheard. 

“ Mr. Darnay,” said Carton, “ I wish we might be friends.” 

“We are already friends, I hope.” 

“You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; 
but I don’t mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say 
I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either.” 

Charles Darnay — as was natural — asked him, in all good 
humour and good-fellowship, what he did mean 1 

“Upon my life,” said Carton, smiling, “I find that easier to 
comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. How¬ 
ever, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion 
when I was more drunk than — than usual ? ” 

“ I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me 
to confess that you had been drinking.” 

“ I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy 
upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it may he 
taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for 
me ! — Don’t be alarmed; I am not going to preach.” 

“ I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you is anything 
but alarming to me.” 


200 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Ah ! ” said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if 
he waved that away. “ On the drunken occasion in question 
(one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about 
liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it.” 

“ I forgot it long ago.” 

“ Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is 
not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by 
no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to 
forget it.” 

“If it was a light answer,” returned Darnay, “I beg your 
forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight 
thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, 
aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I 
have long dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what 
was there to dismiss ! Have I had nothing more important to 
remember, in the great service you rendered me that day ? ” 

“As to the great service,” said Carton, “I am bound to 
avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was 
mere professional clap-trap. I don’t know that I cared what 
became of you, when I rendered it. —- Mind! I say when I 
rendered it; I am speaking of the past.” 

“You make light of the obligation,” returned Darnay, “but 
I will not quarrel with your light answer.” 

“ Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me ! I have gone aside 
from my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. 
How, you know me ; you know I am incapable of all the higher 
and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and 
he’ll tell you so.” 

“ I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.” 

“ Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who 
has never done any good, and never will.” 

“I don’t know that you ‘never will.’” 

“ But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If 
you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow 
of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, 
I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a 
privileged person here ; that I might be regarded as an useless 
(and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected 
between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture, tol- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


201 


erated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I 
should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I 
should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy 
me, I dare say, to know that I had it.” 

“Win you try?” 

“ That is another way of saying that I am placed on the 
footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use 
that freedom with your name ? ” 

“I think so, Carton, by this time.” 

They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. 
Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward appear¬ 
ance, as unsubstantial as ever. 

When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed 
with Miss Pross, the doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay 
made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and 
spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and reck¬ 
lessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or meaning 
to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw him as 
he showed himself. 

He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his 
fair young wife; but when he afterwards joined her in their 
own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty 
lifting of the forehead strongly marked. 

“We are thoughtful to-night! ” said Darnay, drawing his 
arm about her. 

“Yes, dearest Charles,” with her hands on his breast, and the 
inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; “we are rather 
thoughtful to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night.” 

“ What is it, my Lucie ? ” 

“Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg 
you not to ask it ? ” 

“ Will I promise ? What will I not promise to my Love ? ” 

What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from 
the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! 

“ I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more considera¬ 
tion and respect than you expressed for him to-night.” 

“ Indeed, my own ? Why so ? ” 

“That is what you are not to ask me. But I think—I 
know—he does.” 


202 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me 
do, my Life ? ” 

“I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him 
always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I 
would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very 
seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, 
I have seen it bleeding.” 

“ It is a painful reflection to me,” said Charles Damay, quite 
astounded, “ that I should have done him any wrong. I never 
thought this of him.” 

“ My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; 
there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or for¬ 
tunes is reparable now. But I am sure that he is capable of 
good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.” 

She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this 
lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was, 
for hours. 

“ And, 0 my dearest Love ! ” she urged, clinging nearer to 
him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to 
his, “ remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how 
weak he is in his misery ! ” 

The supplication touched him home. “ I will always remem¬ 
ber it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live.” 

He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, 
and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer, then 
pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent dis¬ 
closure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away 
by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that hus¬ 
band, he might have cried to the night — and the words would 
not have parted from his lips for the first time: — 

“ God bless her for her sweet compassion 1” 


CHAPTER XXI 

ECHOING FOOTSTEPS 

A wonderful comer for echoes, it has been remarked, that 
corner where the doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


203 


thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, 
and her old directress and companion, in a life of quiet bliss, 
Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding cornel, 
listening to the echoing footsteps of years. 

At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy 
young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, 
and her eyes would be dimmed. For there was something com¬ 
ing in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely audible 
yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and 
doubts — hopes, of a love as yet unknown to her; doubts, of 
her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delight — divided 
her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the 
sound of footsteps at her own early grave ; and thoughts of the 
husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn 
for her so much, swelled to her eyes and broke like waves. 

That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. 
Then among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her 
tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater 
echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle- 
side could always hear those coming. They came, and the 
shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the Divine 
friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided 
hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as He took the child 
of old, and made it a sacred joy to her. 

Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all 
together, weaving the service of her happy influence through 
the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, 
Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and sooth¬ 
ing sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and prosperous 
among them ; her father’s, firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in 
harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, 
whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the plane- 
tree in the garden ! 

Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they 
were not harsh nor cruel. Even w 7 hen golden hair, like her 
own, lay in a halo, on a pillow round the worn face of a little 
boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, “ Dear papa and mamma, 
I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; 
but I am called, and I must go 1 ” those were not tears all of 


204 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, as the spirit 
departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suf* 
fer them and forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. 
0 Father, blessed words ! 

Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the 
other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in 
them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew 
over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them also, and 
both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmur — like the 
breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore — as the 
little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or 
dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the tongues 
of the Two Cities that were blended in her life. 

The echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney 
Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his 
privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them 
through the evening as he had once done often. He never 
came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding 
him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by 
all true echoes for ages and ages. 

No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her 
with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a 
wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy 
with him — an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine 
hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell; 
but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger 
to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept his 
place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, 
almost at the last. “ Poor Carton ! Kiss him for me ! ” 

Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some 
great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged 
his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the 
boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight and mostly under 
water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But easy and 
strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him 
than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the 
life he was to lead ; and he no more thought of emerging from 
his state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed 
to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


205 


a florid widow with property and three boys, who had nothing 
particularly shining about them but the straight hair of their 
dumpling heads. 

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patron¬ 
age of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked 
before him, like three sheep, to the quiet corner in Soho, and 
had offered as pupils to Lucie’s husband, delicately saying, 
“ Halloa! here are three lumps of bread and cheese towards 
your matrimonial picnic, Darnay! ” The polite rejection of 
the three lumps of bread and cheese had quite bloated Mr. 
Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account 
in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to 
beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was 
also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full- 
bodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice 
to “catch” him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond arts in him¬ 
self, madam, which had rendered him “ not to be caught.” 

Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasionally 
parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the 
latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it 
himself—which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of 
an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender’s being 
carried off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out 
of the way. 

These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes 
pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echo¬ 
ing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How 
near to her heart the echoes of her child’s tread came, and 
those of her own dear father’s, always active and self-possessed, 
and those of her dear husband’s, need not be told. Nor, how 
the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with 
such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than 
any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all 
about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had 
told her that he found her more devoted to him married (if 
that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband 
had said to her that no cares and duties seemed to divide her 
love for him or her help to him, and asked her, “ What is the 
magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us. 


206 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, 
or to have too much to do ? ” 

But there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled 
menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And 
it was now, about little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they began 
to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a 
dreadful sea rising. 

On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and 
eighty-nine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat 
himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. 
It was a hot wild night, and they were all three reminded of 
the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning 
from the same place. 

“ I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig 
back, “ that I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. We 
have been so full of business all day, that we have not known 
what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such an 
uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence 
upon us! Our customers over there seem not to be able to 
confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a 
mania among some of them for sending it to England.” 

“ That has a bad look,” said Darnay. 

“ A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay 1 Yes, but we don’t 
know what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable! 
Some of us at Tellson’s are getting old, arid we really can’t be 
troubled out of the ordinary course without due occasion.” 

“Still,” said Darnay, “you know how gloomy and threaten¬ 
ing the sky is.” 

“I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to 
persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he 
grumbled, “ but I am determined to be peevish after my long 
day’s botheration. Where is Manette ? ” 

“ Here he is! ” said the doctor, entering the dark room at 
the moment. 

“ I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and 
forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long have 
made me nervous without reason. You are not going out, I hope ? ” 
Mi No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,’' 
said the doctor. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


207 


“ I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am 
not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still 
there, Lucie ? I can’t see.” 

“ Of course, it has been kept for you.” 

“ Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed ? ” 

“And sleeping soundly.” 

“ That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why any¬ 
thing should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; 
but I have been so put out all day, aud I am not as young as I 
was! My tea, my dear? Thank ye. Now, come and take 
your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes 
about which you have your theory.” 

“Not a theory; it was a fancy.” 

“ A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her 
hand. “ They are very numerous and very loud, though, are 
they not ? Only hear them ! ” 

Headlong mad and dangerous footsteps to force their way into 
anybody’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once 
stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar oft* as 
the little circle sat in the dark London window. 

Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of 
scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light 
above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone 
in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint 
Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like 
shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind; all the fingers 
convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a 
weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter 
how far off. 

Who gave them out, w T hence they last came, where they began, 
through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores 
at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, 
no eye in the throng could have told ; but muskets were being 
distributed — so were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron 
and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted in¬ 
genuity could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of 
nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones 
and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and heart 




208 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high-fever 
heat. Every living creature there held life as of no account, 
and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. 

As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all 
this raging circled round Defarge’s wine-shop, and every human 
drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the 
vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with gunpowder 
and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, 
dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured 
and strove in the thickest of the uproar. 

“ Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge ; “and do 
you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the 
head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife?” 

“ Eh, well! Here you see me ! ” said madame, composed as 
ever, but not knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right hand 
was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer imple¬ 
ments, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife. 

“ Where do you go, my wife ? ” 

“ I go,” said madame, “ with you at present. You shall see 
me at the head of women, by and by.” 

“ Come, then ! ” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. “ Pa¬ 
triots and friends, we are ready ! The Bastille ! ” 

With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had 
been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on 
wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. 
Alarm bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thunder¬ 
ing on its new beach, the attack begun. 

Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight 
great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the 
fire and through the smoke — in the fire and in the smoke, for 
the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he 
became a cannoneer —Defarge of the wine-shop worked like a 
manful soldier, Two fierce hours. 

Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight 
great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge 
down! “ Work, comrades all, work ! Work, Jacques One, 

Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, 
Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all the 
Angels or the Devils — which you prefer — work ! ” 







Gloomy vaults where light of day had never shown. 




























A TALE OF TWO CITIES 209 

Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had 
long grown hot. 

“ To me, women ! ” cried madame, his wife. “ What! We 
can kill as well as the men when the place is taken ! ” And 
to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously 
armed, hut all armed alike in hunger and revenge. 

Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; hut still the deep ditch, 
the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight 
great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made hy 
the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches, smok¬ 
ing wagon-loads of wet straw, hard work at neighbouring bar¬ 
ricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery 
without stint, boom, smash and rattle, and the furious sounding 
of the living sea; but still the deep ditch, and the single draw¬ 
bridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers, 
and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly 
hot by the service of Four fierce hours. 

A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley — this 
dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in 
it — suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and 
swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, 
past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight great 
towers surrendered! 

So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that 
even to draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable 
as if he had been struggling in the surf of the South Sea, until 
he was landed in the outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, 
against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look about 
him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; Madame Defarge, 
still heading some of her women, was visible in the inner dis¬ 
tance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, 
exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding 
noise, yet furious durab-show. 

“ The Prisoners ! ” 

“ The Records ! ” 

“ The secret cells ! ” 

“ The instruments of torture ! ” 

“ The Prisoners ! ” 

Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherencies, “The 


210 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Prisoners! ” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed 
in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and 
space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the prison 
officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death 
if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong 
hand on the breast of one of these men, — a man with a grey 
head, who had a lighted torch in his hand, — separated him 
from the rest, and got him between himself and the wall. 

“ Show me the North Tower ! ” said Defarge. “ Quick ! ” 

“ I will faithfully,” replied the man, “ if you will come with 
me. But there is no one there.” 

“ What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower 1 ” asked Defarge. “ Quick ! ” 

“ The meaning, monsieur ? ” 

“ Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity ? Or do 
you mean that I shall strike you dead 1 ” 

“ Kill him ! ” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. 

“ Monsieur, it is a cell.” 

“ Show it me ! ” 

“ Pass this way, then.” 

Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently 
disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to 
promise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the 
turnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together during 
this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do 
to hear one another, even then; so tremendous was the noise of 
the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inun¬ 
dation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around 
outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from 
which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and 
leaped into the air like spray. 

Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never 
shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavern¬ 
ous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone 
and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the 
turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with 
all the speed they could make. Here and there, especially at 
first, the inundation started on them and swept by; but when 
they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


211 


tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thick¬ 
ness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and with¬ 
out was only audible to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the 
noise out of which they had come had almost destroyed their 
sense of hearing. 

The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing 
lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent 
their heads and passed in : — 

“ One hundred and five, North Tower ! ” 

There was a small, heavily grated, unglazed window high in 
the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be 
only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small 
chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. There was 
a heap of old feathery wood ashes on the hearth. There were 
a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were the four black¬ 
ened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them. 

“ Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see 
them,” said Defarge to the turnkey. 

The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with 
his eyes. 

“ Stop ! — Look here, Jacques ! ” 

“ A. M. ! ” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. 

“ Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following the 
letters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gun¬ 
powder. “ And here he WTote ‘ a poor physician.’ And it was 
he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone. 
What is that in your hand ? A crowbar ? Give it me ! ” 

He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He 
made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on 
the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few 
blows. 

“ Hold the light higher! ” he said wrathfully to the turn¬ 
key. “ Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And 
see ! Here is my knife,” throwing it to him ; “rip open that 
bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you ! ” 

With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the 
hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its 
sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it 
In a tew minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down. 


212 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old 
wood ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which his 
weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious 
touch. 

“ Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?” 

“ Nothing.” 

“Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell 
So ! Light them, you ! ” 

The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. 
Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it 
burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard, seeming to 
recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they 
were in the raging flood once more. 

They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge him¬ 
self. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper 
foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the 
Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would 
not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, 
the governor would escape, and the people’s blood (suddenly of 
some value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged. 

In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed 
to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat 
and red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and 
that was a woman’s. “ See, there is my husband ! ” she cried, 
pointing him out. “ See Defarge! ” She stood immovable 
close to the grim old officer, and remained immovable close to 
him; remained immovable close to him through the streets, as 
Defarge and the rest bore him along ; remained immovable close 
to him when he was got near his destination, and began to be 
struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when 
the long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so 
close to him when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly 
animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel 
knife — long ready — hewed off his head. 

The hour was come when Saint Antoine was to execute his 
horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he 
could be and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up ; and the blood 
of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down — down 
on the steps of the Hotel de Ville, where the governor’s body 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


213 


lay—down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge, where she 
had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. “ Lower 
the lamp yonder! ” cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for 
a new means of death; “ here is one of his soldiers to be left 
on guard! ” The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea 
rushed on. 

The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive 
upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet un¬ 
fathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorse¬ 
less sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and 
faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of 
pity could make no mark on them. 

But in the ocean of faces, where every fierce and furious 
expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces — 
each seven in number — so fixedly contrasting with the rest, 
that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with 
it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm 
that had burst their tomb, were carried high over head; all 
scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day 
were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. 
Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, 
whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. 
Impassive faces, yet with a suspended — not an abolished — 
expression on them; faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having 
yet to raise the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with 
the bloodless lips, “ Thou didst it ! ” 

Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys 
of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some dis¬ 
covered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time, 
long dead of broken hearts, — such, and such-like, the loudly 
echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris 
streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty- 
nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay and 
keep these feet far out of her life! For they are headlong, 
mad, and dangerous ; and in the years so long after the break 
ing of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily 
purified when once stained red. 


214 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


CHAPTER XXII 

THE SEA STILL RISES 

Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in 
which to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread to such 
extent as he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces and 
congratulations, when Madame Defarge sat at her counter, as 
usual, presiding over the customers. Madame Defarge wore no 
rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of Spies had become, 
even in one short week, extremely chary of trusting themselves 
to the saint’s mercies. The lamps across his streets had a por¬ 
tentously elastic swing with them. 

Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning 
light and heat, contemplating the wine-shop and the street. In 
both were several knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but 
now with a manifest sense of power enthroned on their distress. 
The raggedest nightcap, awry on the wretchedest head, had this 
crooked significance in it: “I know how hard it has grown for 
me, the wearer of this, to support life in myself; but do you 
know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to 
destroy life in you ? ” Every lean bare arm, that had been 
without work before, had this work always ready for it now, 
that it could strike. The fingers of the knitting women were 
vicious, with the experience that they could tear. There was 
a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine; the image had 
been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the last 
finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. 

Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed 
approval as was to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine 
women. One of her sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, 
rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the mother of two 
children withal, this lieutenant had already earned the compli¬ 
mentary name of The Vengeance. 

“ Hark !” said The Vengeance. “ Listen, then ! Who comes?” 

As if a train of powder, laid from the outermost bound of the 
Saint Antoine Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been suddenly 
fired, a fast-spreading murmur came rushing along. 

“It is Defarge,” said madame. “Silence, patriots !* 



The Hotel de Ville 








































































♦ 


t 








A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


215 


Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and 
looked around him ! “ Listen, everywhere! ” said madame 

again. “ Listen to him ! ” Defarge stood, panting, against a 
background of eager eyes and open mouths, formed outside the 
door; all those within the wine-shop had sprung to their feet. 

“ Say, then, my husband, what is it! ” 

“ News from the other world ! ” 

“ How, then ? ” cried madame contemptuously. “ The other 
world ? ” 

“Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the fam¬ 
ished people that they might eat grass, and who died, and went 
to Hell ? ” 

“ Everybody ! ” from all throats. 

“ The news is of him. He is among us ! ” 

“ Among us ? ” from the universal throat again. “ And dead ? ” 

“Not dead! He feared us so much — and with reason — 
that he caused himself to be represented as dead, and had a 
grand mock funeral. But they have found him alive, hiding in 
the country, and have brought him in. I have seen him but 
now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have said 
that he had reason to fear us. Say all! Had he reason 1 ” 

Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, 
if he had never known it yet, he would have known it in his 
hearts of hearts, if he could have heard the answering cry. 

A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his 
wife looked steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, 
and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet 
behind the counter. 

“Patriots!” said Defarge, in a determined voice, “are we 
ready h ” 

Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the 
drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had 
flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific 
shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty 
Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the 
women. 

The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with 
which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they 
had, and came pouring down into the streets; but the women 


216 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


were a sight to chill the boldest. F rom such household occupa¬ 
tions as their bare poverty yielded, from their children, from 
their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground famished 
and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one 
another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and 
actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister ! Old Foulon taken, 
my mother ! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter ! Then, a 
score of others ran into the midst of these, beating their breasts, 
tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who 
told the starving people they might eat grass ! Foulon who told 
my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to 
give him ! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when 
these breasts were dry with want! 0 mother of God, this Fou¬ 

lon ! 0 Heaven, our suffering ! Hear me, my dead baby, and my 
withered father : I swear on my knees, on these stones, to avenge 
you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and young men, Give 
us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the 
heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend 
Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may 
grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the women, 
lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at 
their own friends until they dropped in a passionate swoon, 
and were only saved by the men belonging to them from being 
trampled under foot. 

Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This 
Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, 
if Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! 
Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter so fast, and 
drew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suc¬ 
tion, that within a quarter of an hour there was not a human 
creature in Saint Antoine’s bosom but a few old crones and the 
wailing children. No. They were all by that time choking the 
Hall of examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, 
and overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets. The 
Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques Three, 
were in the first press, and at no great distance from him in the 
Hall. 

“ See ! ” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “ See the 
old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


217 


bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha ! That was well done. 
Let him eat it now ! ” Madame put her knife under her arm 
and clapped her hands as at a play. 

The people immediately behind Madame Defarge explaining 
the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those 
again explaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring 
streets resounded with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during 
two or three hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels 
of words, Madame Defarge’s frequent expressions of impatience 
were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a distance; the 
more readily, because certain men who had by some wonderful 
exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture to look in 
from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as 
a telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. 

At length, the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray, 
as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old prisoner’s 
head. The favour was too much to bear; in an instant the 
barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly long went 
to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got him ! 

It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. 
Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded 
the miserable wretch in a deadly embrace — Madame Defarge 
had but followed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with 
which he was tied — The Vengeance and Jacques Three were 
not yet up with them, and the men at the windows had not 
yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high 
perches — when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, 
“ Bring him out! Bring him to the lamp ! ” 

Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the build¬ 
ing ; now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; 
dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of gras§ and 
straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands; torn, 
bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching 
for mercy ; now, full of vehement agony of action, with a small 
clear space about him as the people drew one another back that 
they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through a 
forest of legs ; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where 
one of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let 
go — as a cat might have done to a mouse — and silently and 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


218 

composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he 
besought her : the women passionately screeching at him all the 
time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with 
grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope broke, 
and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the 
rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was 
merciful and held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with 
grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at 
the sight of! 

Nor was this the end of the day’s bad work, for Saint 
Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that it 
boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the son-in 
law of the despatched, another of the people’s enemies and 
insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard five hundred 
strong in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on 
flaring sheets of paper, seized him,—would have torn him out 
of the breast of an army to bear Foulon company, — set his 
head and heart on pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day 
in Wolf-procession through the streets. 

Not before dark night did the men and women come back to 
the children, wailing and breadless. Then the miserable bakers’ 
shops were beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy 
bad bread; and while they waited with stomachs faint and 
empty, they beguiled the time by embracing one another on the 
triumphs of the day, and achieving them again in gossip. Grad¬ 
ually, these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed away ; 
and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and slender 
fires were made in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in 
common, afterwards supping at their doors. 

Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, 
as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellow¬ 
ship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck 
some sparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers 
who had had their full share in the worst of the day played 
gently with their meagre children; and lovers, with such a 
world around them and before them, loved and hoped. 

It was almost morning when Defarge’s wine-shop parted 
with its last lot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to 
madame his wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door: — 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


219 


“ At last it is come, my dear ! ” 

“ Eh, well! ” returned madame. “ Almost.” 

Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept; even The Vengeance 
slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The 
drum’s was the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and 
hurry had not changed. The Vengeance, as custodian of the 
drum, could have wakened him up and had the same speech 
out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon was seized; 
not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint 
Antoine’s bosom. 


CHAPTER XXIII 

FIRE RISES 

There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, 
and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out 
of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might 
serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor 
reduced body together. The prison on the crag was not so 
dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, but not 
many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of 
them knew what his men would do — beyond this; that it 
would probably not be what he was ordered. 

Far and wide, lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but 
desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade 
of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. 
Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken. 
Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, chil¬ 
dren, and the soil that bore them — all worn out. 

Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) 
was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was 
a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal 
more to equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class 
had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that 
Creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon 
wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be something short- 
sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, 


220 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted 
from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been 
turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned 
and turned with nothing to bite, Monseigneur began to run 
away from a phenomenon so low and unaccountable. 

But this was not the change on the village, and on many a 
village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had 
squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his 
presence except for the pleasures of the chase — now, found in 
hunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for 
whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of bar¬ 
barous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in 
the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the 
disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beati¬ 
fied and beatifying features of Monseigneur. 

For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, 
in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he 
was and to dust he must return — being for the most part too 
much occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and 
how much more he would eat if he had it — in these times, as 
he raised his eyes from his lonely labour and viewed the pros¬ 
pect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the 
like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a 
frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would 
discern without surprise that it was a shaggy-haired man, of 
almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy 
even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, 
steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the 
marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns 
and leaves and moss of many byways through woods. 

Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the 
July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, 
taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail. 

The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, 
at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had iden¬ 
tified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in 
a dialect that was just intelligible : — 

“How goes it, Jacques % n 
“All well, Jacques.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


221 


“ Touch, then ! ” 

They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of 
stones. 

“No dinner ? ” 

“ Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with 
a hungry face. 

“ It is the fashion,” growled the man. “ I meet no dinner 
anywhere.” 

He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint 
and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow; then, sud¬ 
denly held it from him and dropped something into it from 
between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out in a 
puff of smoke. 

“ Touch, then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to 
say it this time, after observing these operations. They again 
joined hands. 

“ To-night?” said the mender of roads. 

“ To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. 

“Where?” 

“Here.” 

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones look¬ 
ing silently at one another, with the hail driving in between 
them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to 
clear over the village. 

“ Show me ! ” said the traveller then, moving to the brow 
of the hill. 

“ See ! ” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. 
“ You go down here, and straight through the street, and past 
the fountain — ” 

“ To the Devil with all that! ” interrupted the other, rolling 
his eye over the landscape. “ I go through no streets and past 
no fountains. Well ? ” 

“Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hili 
above the village.” 

“ Good. When do you cease to work ? ” 

“At sunset.” 

“Will you wake me, before departing. I have walked two 
nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall 
sleep like a child. Will you wake me ? ” 


222 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ Surely.” 

The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, 
slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back 
on the heap of stones. He was fast asleep directly. 

As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail- 
clouds, rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky 
which were responded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, 
the little man (who wore a red cap now, in place of his blue 
one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the heap of stones. 
His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he used his tools 
mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account. 
The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse 
woollen red cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and 
hairy skins of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare 
living, and the sullen and desperate compression of the lips in 
sleep, inspired the mender of roads with awe. The traveller 
had travelled far, and his feet were footsore, and his ankles 
chafed and bleeding-; his great shoes, stuffed with leaves and 
grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long leagues, and 
his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into sores. 
Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep 
at secret weapons in his breast or where not; but in vain, for 
he slept with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely 
as his lips. Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, 
gates, trenches, and drawbridges, seemed, to the mender of 
roads, to be so much air as against this figure. And when he 
lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, he saw 
in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tend¬ 
ing to centres all over France. 

The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and inter¬ 
vals of brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the 
pattering lumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into 
which the sun changed them, until the sun was low in the 
west, and the sky was glowing. Then, the mender of roads 
having got his tools together and all things ready to go down 
into the village, roused him. 

“ Good! ” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “ Two 
leagues beyond the summit of the hill?” 

“About.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


223 


“ About. Good ! ” 

The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on 
before him according to the set of the wind, and was soon at 
the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought 
there to drink, and appearing even to whisper to them in his 
whispering to all the village. When the village had taken its 
uoor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it usually did, but came 
out of doors again, and remained there. A curious contagion 
of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together 
at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of looking 
expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, 
chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his 
housetop alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down 
from behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the foun¬ 
tain below, and sent word to the sacristan, who kept the keys 
of the church, that there might be need to ring the tocsin by 
and by. 

The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, 
keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as 
though they threatened the pile of building massive and dark 
in the gloom. Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain 
ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger 
rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went through the 
hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up 
the stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last 
Marquis had slept. East, West, North, and South, through 
the woods, four heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the 
high grass and cracked the branches, striding on cautiously to 
come together in the courtyard. Four lights broke out there, 
and moved away in different directions, and all was black again. 

But not for long. Presently the chateau began to make 
itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it 
were growing luminous. Then a flickering streak played be¬ 
hind the architecture of the front, picking out transparent 
places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows 
were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. 
Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth 
and the stone* faces, awakened, stared out of fire. 

A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people 


224 


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who were left there, and there was saddling of a horse and 
riding away. There was spurring and splashing through the 
darkness, and bridle was drawn in the space by the village 
fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle’s 
door. “ Help, Gabelle ! Help, every one ! ” The tocsin rang 
impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. 
The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular 
friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the 
pillar of fire in the sky. “ It must be forty feet high,” said 
they, grimly; and never moved. 

The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clat¬ 
tered away through the village, and galloped up the stony 
steep, to the prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of 
officers were looking at the fire; removed from them, a group 
of soldiers. “ Help, gentlemen-officers! The chateau is on 
fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely 
aid I Help, help ! ” The officers looked towards the soldiers 
who looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with 
shrugs and bitings of lips, “ It must burn.” 

As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the 
street, the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and 
the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one 
man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into 
their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane 
of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles 
to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur 
Gabelle ; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on tnat 
functionary’s part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to 
authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bon¬ 
fires with, and that post-horses would roast. 

The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the 
roaring and raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving 
straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the 
edifice away. With the rising and falling of the. blaze, the 
stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great 
masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dints in 
the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke 
again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at 
the stake and contending with the fire. .... 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


225 


The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the 
fire, scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the 
four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest 
of smoke. Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin 
of the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of 
the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled 
down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits 
branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation ; stupefied 
birds wheeled about, and dropped into the furnace ; four fierce 
figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the 
night-enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, 
towards their next destination. The illuminated village had seized 
hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy. 

Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, 
fire, and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur 
Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxes — 
though it was but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent at 
all, that Gabelle had got in those latter days — became impa¬ 
tient for an interview with him, and surrounding his house, 
summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Where¬ 
upon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to 
hold counsel with himself. The result of that conference was, 
that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his housetop behind his 
stack of chimneys; this time resolved, if his door were broken 
in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative temperament), 
to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet, and crush a 
man or two below. 

Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, 
with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating 
at his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music, not to 
mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road 
before his posting-house gate, which the village showed a lively 
inclination to displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be 
passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, 
ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle 
had resolved ! But the friendly dawn appearing at last, and 
the rush candles of the village guttering out, the people happily 
dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down, bringing his life 
With him for that while. 


226 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there 
were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other 
nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful 
streets, where they had been born and bred; also, there were 
other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender 
of roads and his fellows, upon whom the functionaries and 
soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their 
turn. But the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, 
North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, 
fire burned. The altitude of the gallows that would turn to 
water and quench it, no functionary, by any stretch of mathe¬ 
matics, was able to calculate successfully. 


CHAPTER XXIV 

DRAWN TO THE LOADSTONE ROCK 

In such risings of fire and risings of sea — the firm earth 
shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb 
but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and 
wonder of the beholders on the shore — three years of tempest 
were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had been 
woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the life 
of her home. 

Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the 
echoes in the corner with hearts that failed them when they 
heard the thronging feet. For the footsteps had become to 
their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a red 
flag and with their country declared in danger, changed into 
wild beasts by terrible enchantment long persisted in. 

Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the 
phenomenon of his not being appreciated : of his being so little 
wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving 
his dismissal from it and this life together. Like the fabled 
rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terri¬ 
fied at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no ques¬ 
tion, but immediately fled; so Monseigneur, after boldly reading 
the Lord’s prayer backwards for a great number of years and 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


227 


performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil 
One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his 
noble heels. 

The shining Bull’s Eye of the Court was gone, or it would 
have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had 
never been a good eye to see with — had long had the mote in 
it of Lucifer’s pride, Sardanapalus’s luxury, and a mole’s blind¬ 
ness —t- but it had dropped out and was gone. The Court, from 
that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of intrigue, 
corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together. Royalty 
was gone ; had been besieged in its Palace and “ suspended,” 
when the last tidings came over. 

The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and 
ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scat¬ 
tered far and wide. 

As was natural, the headquarters and great gathering-place 
of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson’s Bank. Spirits are 
supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, 
and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his 
guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such 
French intelligence as was most to be relied upon came quick¬ 
est. Again: Tellson’s was a munificent house, and extended 
great liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high 
estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the coming storm 
in time, and, anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made 
provident remittances to Tellson’s, were always to be heard of 
there by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that 
every new-comer from France reported himself and his tidings 
at Tellson’s almost as a matter of course. For such variety of 
reasons, Tellson’s was at that time, as to French intelligence, 
a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well known to the 
public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so 
numerous, that Tellson’s sometimes wrote the latest news out in 
a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran 
through Temple Bar to read. 

On a steamy, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and 
Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low 
voice. The penitential den, once set apart for interviews with 
the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled to over- 


228 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


flowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time o! 
closing. 

“ But although you are the youngest man that ever lived,” 
said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, “ I must still suggest 
to you — ” 

“ I understand. That I am too old ? ” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of 
travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not even 
be safe for you.” 

“My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confi¬ 
dence, “ you touch some of the reasons for my going : not for 
my staying away. It is safe enough for me ; nobody will care 
to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore when 
there are so many people there much better worth interfering 
with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a dis¬ 
organised city there would be no occasion to send somebody 
from our House here to our House there, who knows the city 
and the business, of old, and is in Tellson’s confidence. As 
to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter 
weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few in¬ 
conveniences for the sake of Tellson’s, after all these years, who 
ought to be 1 ” 

“ I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, some¬ 
what restlessly, and like one thinking aloud. 

“ Indeed ! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise ! ” 
exclaimed Mr. Lorry. “You wish you were going yourself? 
And you a Frenchman born ? You are a wise counsellor.” 

“ My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, 
that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) 
has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, 
having had some sympathy for the miserable people, and having 
abandoned something to them,” he spoke here in his former 
thoughtful manner, “ that one might be listened to, and might 
have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, 
after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie — ” 

“ When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. 
“ Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of 
Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 229 

** However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a 
smile. “ It is more to the purpose that you say you are.” 

“ And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear 
Charles,” Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered 
his voice, “ you can have no conception of the difficulty with 
which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our 
books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord above 
knows what the compromising consequences would be to num¬ 
bers of people, if some of our documents were seized or de¬ 
stroyed ; and they might be, at any time, you know, for who 
can say that Paris is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! 
Now a judicious selection from these with the least possible 
delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them 
out of harm’s way, is within the power (without loss of precious 
time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I 
hang back, when Tellson’s knows this and says this — Tellson’s 
whose bread I have eaten these sixty years — because I am a 
little stiff about the joints ? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a 
dozen old codgers here ! ” 

“ How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. 
Lorry.” 

“ Tut ! Nonsense, sir! — And, my dear Charles,” said Mr. 
Lorry, glancing at the House again, “ you are to remember, 
that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter 
what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious 
matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in strict 
confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even to you), 
by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of whom 
had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Bar¬ 
riers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as 
easily as in business-like old England; but now everything is 
stopped.” 

“ And do you really go to-night ? ” 

“I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to 
admit of delay.” ' 

“ And do you take no one with you ? ” 

“All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will 
have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. 
Jerry has been my body-guard on Sunday nights for a long time 


230 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


past, and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of 
being anything but an English bull-dog, or of having any design 
in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his master.” 

“ I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and 
youthfulness.” 

“ I must say again, nonsense, nonsense ! When I have exe¬ 
cuted this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson’s 
proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to 
think about growing old.” 

This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry’s usual desk, with 
Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of 
what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before 
long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under his re¬ 
verses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native 
British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it 
were the one only harvest ever known under the skies that had 
not been sown — as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted 
to be done, that had led to it — as if observers of the wretched 
millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources 
that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevi¬ 
tably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded 
what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with the extrava¬ 
gant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things 
that had utterly exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and 
earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured without some re¬ 
monstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was 
such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion 
of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his 
mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and 
which still kept him so. 

Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King’s Bench Bar, 
far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the 
theme: broaching to Monseigneur his devices for blowing the 
people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, 
and doing without them : and for accomplishing many similar 
objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by sprink¬ 
ling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a par¬ 
ticular feeling of objection ; and Darnay stood divided between 
going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to inter 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 231 

pose his word, when the thing that w T as to he, went on to shape 
itself out. 

The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and 
unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any 
traces of the person to whom it was addressed ? The House 
laid the letter dow r n so close to Darnay that he saw the direction 

— the more quickly, because it was his own right name. The 
address, turned into English, ran : “Very pressing. To Monsieur 
heretofore the Marquis St. Evre'monde, of France, Confided to 
the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England.” 

On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his 
one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret 
of his name should be— unless he; the doctor, dissolved the 
obligation — kept inviolate between them. Nobody else knew 
it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of the fact; 
Mr. Lorry could have none. 

“No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “I have 
referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell 
me where this gentleman is to be found.” 

The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the 
Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. 
Lorry’s desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Mon¬ 
seigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant 
refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of that 
plotting and indignant refugee ; and This, That, and The Other, 
all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, 
concerning the Marquis who was not to be found. 

“Nephew, I believe — but in any case degenerate successor 

— of the polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. 
“ Happy to say, I never knew him.” 

“ A craven who abandoned his post,” said another, — this 
Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half 
suffocated, in a load of hay, — “some years ago.” 

“ Infected with the new doctrines,” said a third, eyeing the 
direction through his glass in passing; “ set himself in opposi¬ 
tion to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited 
them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will recompense 
him now, I hope, as he deserves.” 

“ Hey ? ” cried the blatant Stryver. “ Did he though 1 Is 


282 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


that the sort of fellow ? Let us look at his infamous name 
D—n the fellow ! ” 

Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. 
Stryver on the shoulder, and said : — 

“ I know the fellow.” 

“ Do you, by Jupiter?” said Stryver. “I am sorry for it.” 

“Why?” 

“ Why, Mr. Darnay ? D’ye hear what he did ? Don’t ask 
why, in these times.” 

“ But I do ask why.” 

“ Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I 
am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. 
Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blas¬ 
phemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his 
property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder 
by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who 
instructs youth knows him? Well, but I’ll answer you. I am 
sorry, because I believe there is contamination in such a scoun¬ 
drel. That’s why.” 

Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked 
himself, and said : “You may not understand the gentleman.” 

“ I understand how to put you in a corner, Mr. Darnay,” 
said Bully Stryver, “ and I’ll do it. If this fellow is a gentle¬ 
man, I don't understand him. You may tell him so, with my 
compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after aban¬ 
doning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly mob I 
wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gentlemen,” 
said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, “ I 
know something of human nature, and I tell you that you’ll 
never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the 
mercies of such precious proteges. No, gentlemen; he’ll always 
show ’em a clean pair of heels very early in the scuffle, and 
sneak away.” 

With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver 
shouldered himself into Fleet Street, amidst the general appro¬ 
bation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left 
alone at the desk, in the general departure from the Bank. 

“Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. 
“ You know where to deliver it ? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


233 


“I do.” 

“Will you undertake to explain that we suppose it to have 
been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to 
forward it, and that it has been here some time ? ” 

“ I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here ? ” 

“ From here, at eight.” 

“ I will come back, to see you off.” 

Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most 
other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of 
the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its 
contents: — 


Prison of the Abbaye, Paris, June 21, 1792. 
Monsieur heretofore the Marquis. 

After having long been in danger of my life at the hands 
of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and in¬ 
dignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the 
road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house 
has been destroyed — razed to the ground. 

The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore 
the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the 
tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), 
is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the people, in 
that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain 
I represent that I have acted for them, and not against, accord¬ 
ing to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before 
the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the im¬ 
posts they had ceased to pay ; that I had collected no rent, that 
I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that 
I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant ? 

Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where 
is that emigrant! I cry in my sleep where is he ! 1 demand 

of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me ! No answer. Ah, 
Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across 
the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the 
great bank of Tilson known at Paris ! 

For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the 
honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur hereto- 


234 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


fore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is that 1 
have been true to you. Oh, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, 
I pray you be you true to me! 

From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend 
nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur hereto¬ 
fore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy 
service. 

Your afflicted 

Gabelle. 

The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigor¬ 
ous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good 
servant, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, 
stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to 
and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his 
face from the passers-by. 

He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which 
had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old 
family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the 
aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric 
that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He 
knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of 
his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had 
been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have 
systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had 
meant to do it, and that it had never been done. 

The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity 
of being always actively employed, the swift changes and 
troubles of the time which had followed on one another so fast, 
that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans of 
last week, and the events of the week following made all new 
again; he knew very well, that to the force of these circum¬ 
stances he had yielded — not without disquiet, but still with¬ 
out continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had 
watched the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted 
and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were 
trooping from France by every highway and byway, and their 
property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their 
very names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


235 


it could be to any new authority in France that might impeach 
him for it. 

But he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man.- 
he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, 
that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself 
on a world with no favour in it, won his own private place 
there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held 
the impoverished and involved estate on written instructions to 
spare the people, to give them what little there was to give, — 
such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the 
winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip 
in the summer, — and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and 
proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now. 

This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had 
begun to make, that he would go to Paris. 

Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and 
streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone 
Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Every¬ 
thing that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and 
faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His 
latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being worked 
out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he 
who could not fail to know that he was better than they was 
not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert 
the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half 
stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the 
pointed comparison of himself with the brave old gentleman 
in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison (injurious 
to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, 
which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above 
all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had 
followed Gabelle’s letter, the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in 
danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good name. 

His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. 

Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must 
sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock ; he saw hardly 
any danger. The intention with which he had. done what he 
had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented it 
before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged 


236 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, that 
glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine 
mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even 
saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this 
raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. 

As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he con¬ 
sidered that neither Lucie, nor her father must know of it until 
he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation ; 
and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards 
the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge of 
the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense 
and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation 
was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to 
avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did 
not discuss with himself. But that circumstance, too, had had 
its influence in his course. 

He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it 
was time to return to Tellson’s, and take leave of Mr. Lony. 
As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to 
this old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now. 

A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and 
Jerry was booted and equipped. 

“I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. 
Lorry. “ I would not consent to your being charged with any 
written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one ? ” 

“ That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “ if it is not 
dangerous.” 

“ Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.” 

“ What is his name ? ” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket- 
book in his hand. 

“ Gabelle.” 

“Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate 
Gabelle in prison ” 

“ Simply, ‘ that he has received the letter, and will come.’ ” 

“ Any time mentioned ? ” 

“ He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.” 

“ Any person mentioned ? ” 

“ No.” 

He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


237 


and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere 
of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet Street. “ My love 
to Lucie, and to little Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry at parting, “ and 
take precious care of them till I come hack.” Charles Darnay 
shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled 
away. 

That night — it was the fourteenth of August — he sat up 
late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explain¬ 
ing the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and 
showing her, at length, the reasons that he had for feeling 
confident that he could become involved in no personal danger 
there; the other was to the doctor, confiding Lucie and their 
dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with 
the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would 
despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his 
arrival. 

It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the 
first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard 
matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they w~ere pro¬ 
foundly unsuspicious. But an affectionate glance at his wife, 
so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her what 
impended (he had been half moved tc do it, so strange it was 
to him to act in anything without ner quiet aid), and the day 
passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and 
her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would 
return by and by (an imaginary engagement took him out, and 
he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged 
into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart. 

The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all 
the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. 
He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half 
an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; 
and began his journey. “ For the love of Heaven, of justice, of 
generosity, of the honour of your noble name! ” was the poor 
prisoner’s cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as 
he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away 
for the Loadstone Rock. 


288 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


BOOK THE THIRD —THE TRACK OF A STORM 


CHAPTER I 

IN SECRET 

The traveller fared slowly on his way who fared towards 
Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand 
seven hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, 
bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to 
delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France 
had been upon his throne in all his glory; but the changed 
times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every 
town gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patri¬ 
ots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of 
readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned 
them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of 
their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them 
and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy 
deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of 
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. 

A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, 
when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these 
country roads there was no hope of return until he should have 
been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall 
now, he must on to his journey’s end. Not a mean village 
closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road 
behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series 
that was barred between him and England. The universal 
watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in 
a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he 
could not have felt his freedom more completely gone. 

This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


239 


highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress 
twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him 
back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, rid¬ 
ing with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days 
upon his journey in France alone, when he .went to bed tired 
out, in a little town on the highroad, still a long way from 
Paris. 

Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle’s letter 
from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. 
His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been 
such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And 
he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find 
himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been re¬ 
mitted until morning, in the middle of the night. 

Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed 
patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who 
sat down on the bed. 

“ Emigrant,” said the functionary, “ I am going to send you 
on to Paris, under an escort.” 

“ Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though 
I could dispense with the escort.” 

“ Silence ! ” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with 
the butt-end of his musket. “ Peace, aristocrat! ” 

“ It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid function¬ 
ary. “You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort — and 
must pay for it.” 

“ I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay. 

“Choice! Listen to him!” cried the same scowling red¬ 
cap. “ As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp- 
iron ! ” 

“ It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the func¬ 
tionary. “ Rise and dress yourself, emigrant.” 

Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house 
where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, 
and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for 
his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads 
at three o’clock in the morning. 

The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tricol¬ 
oured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, whfl 


240 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his own 
horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of 
which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this 
state they set forth, with the sharp rain driving in their faces; 
clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pave¬ 
ment, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they 
traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the 
mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital. 

They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after 
daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were 
so wretchedly clothed', that they twisted straw round their bare 
legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. 
Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and 
apart from such considerations of present danger as arose from 
one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his 
musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the re¬ 
straint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in 
his breast; for he reasoned with himself that it could have no 
reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet 
stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in 
the Abbaye, that were not yet made. 

But when they came to the town of Beauvais — which they 
did at eventide, when the streets were filled with people — he 
could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was 
very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dis¬ 
mount at the posting-yard, and many voices in it called out 
loudly, “ Down with the emigrant! ” 

He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, 
and, resuming it as his safest place, said : — 

“ Emigrant, my friends ! Do you not see me here, in France* 
of my own will ? ” 

“ You are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him 
in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand, “ and 
you are a cursed aristocrat! ” 

The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the 
rider’s bridle (at which he was evidently making), and sooth¬ 
ingly said, “ Let him be; let him be ! He will be judged at 
Paris.” 

“Judged C* repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 241 

“Ay ! and condemned as a traitor.” At this, the crowd roared 
approval. 

Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse’s 
head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his 
saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, 
as soon as he could make his voice heard : — 

“ Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am 
not a traitor.” 

“He lies!” cried the smith. “He is a traitor since the 
decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is 
not his own ! ” 

At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the 
crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, 
the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode 
in close upon his horse’s flanks, and the postmaster shut and 
barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon 
them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but no more 
was done. 

“What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay 
asked the postmaster, when he had thanked them, and stood 
beside him in the yard. 

“ Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.” 

“ When passed ? ” 

“ On the fourteenth.” 

“ The day I left England ! ” 

“ Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will 
be others — if there are not already — banishing all emigrants, 
and condemning all to $leath who return. That is what he 
meant when he said your life was not your own.” 

“ But there are no such decrees yet ? ” 

“What do I know?” said the postmaster, shrugging his 
shoulders; “ there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. 
What would you have ? ” 

They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the 
night, and then rode forward again when all the town was 
asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar 
things which make this wild ride unreal, not the least was the 
seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over 
dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor cottages, not 


242 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would 
find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, 
circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all 
drawn up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, 
there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help them out of it, 
and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness, 
jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impover¬ 
ished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, 
diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses and by 
the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up 
across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the 
roads. 

Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The 
barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up 
to it. 

“ Where are the papers of this prisoner ? ” demanded a reso^ 
lute-looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the 
guard. 

Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay 
requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller 
and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed 
state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had 
paid for. 

“ Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any 
heed of him whatever, “ are the papers of this prisoner ? ” 

The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. 
Casting his eyes over Gabelle’s letter, the same personage in 
authority showed some disorder and t surprise, and looked at 
Darnay with a close attention. 

He left both escort and escorted without saying a word, how¬ 
ever, and went into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon 
their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this 
state of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was 
held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far out¬ 
numbering the former; and that, while ingress into the city for 
peasants’ carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and 
traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest 
people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and 
women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


248 


waiting to issue forth; but the previous identification was so 
strict that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some 
of these people knew their turn for examination to be so far off 
that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while 
others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap and 
tricolour cockade were universal, both among men and women. 

When he had sat in his saddle some half hour, taking note of 
these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man 
in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then 
he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the 
escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the 
two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away 
without entering the city. 

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of 
common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, 
asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states 
between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were 
standing and lying about. The light in the guard-house, half 
derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half from 
the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. 
Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer, of a 
coarse dark aspect, presided over these. 

“ Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay’s conductor, as he took 
a slip of paper to write on, “ is this the emigrant Evr^monde ? * 

“ This is the man.” 

“Your age, Evrdmonde? ” 

“ Thirty-seven.” 

“ Married, Evr^monde ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Where married ? ” 

“ In England.” 

“ Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evr&nonde?” 

“ In England.” 

“Without doubt. You are consigned, Evrdmonde, to the 
prison of La Force.” 

“Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. “Under what law. 
and for what offence?” 

The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. 

“We have new laws, Evrdmonde, and new offences, since 


244 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


you were here.” He said it with a hard smile, and went on 
writing. 

“ I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, 
in response to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which 
lies before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do 
so without delay. Is not that my right ? ” 

“ Emigrants have no rights, Evrdmonde,” was the stolid 
reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to 
himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to 
Defarge, with the words “ In secret.” 

Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must 
accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two 
armed patriots attended them. 

“ It is you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down 
the guard-house steps and turned into Paris, “ who married the 
daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that 
is no more.” 

“ Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. 

“ My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quar¬ 
ter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me.” 

“My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? 
Yes! ” 

The word “ wife ” seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to 
Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, “ In the name of that 
sharp female newly born and called La Guillotine, why did you 
come to France ? ” 

“You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe 
it is the truth ? ” 

“ A bad truth for you,” said Defarge, speaking with knitted 
brows, and looking straight before him. 

“ Indeed, I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so 
changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will 
you render me a little help ? ” 

“None.” Defarge spoke, always looking straight before 
him. 

“Will you answer me a single question?” 

“ Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is.” 

“ In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have 
some free communication with the world outside ? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


245 


" You will see.” 

“I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any 
means of presenting my case ? ” 

“You will see. But, what then? Other people have been 
similarly buried in worse prisons, before now.” 

“ But never by me, Citizen Defarge.” 

Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in 
a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, 
the fainter hope there was — or so Darnay thought — of his 
softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste to 
say: — 

“It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, 
even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be 
able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson’s Bank, an Eng¬ 
lish gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, without 
comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force. 
Will you cause that to be done for me ? ” 

“ I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, “ nothing for you. 
My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn 
servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you.” 

Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and 
his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, 
he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle 
of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children 
scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and 
a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, 
that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no 
more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes 
should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty 
street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted 
on a stool, was addressing an excited audience on the crimes 
against the people, of the king and the royal family. The few 
words that he caught from this man’s lips, first made it known 
to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the for¬ 
eign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except 
at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and 
the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him. 

That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those 
which had developed themselves when he left England, he of 


246 


A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, 
and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. 
He could not but admit to himself that he might not have 
made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few 
days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined 
by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled 
as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its 
obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, 
days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, 
was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering 
time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had 
been a hundred thousand years away. The “sharp female 
newly born, and called La Guillotine,” was hardly known to 
him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful 
deeds that were to be soon done were probably unimagined at 
that time in the brains of the doers. How could they have a 
place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind 1 

Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel 
separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likeli¬ 
hood or the certainty; but beyond this, he dreaded nothing dis¬ 
tinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into 
a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force. 

A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to 
whom Defarge presented “ The Emigrant Evrdmonde.” 

“ What the Devil! How many more of them ! ” exclaimed 
the man with the bloated face. 

Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, 
and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots. 

“ What the Devil, I say again! ” exclaimed the jailer, left 
with his wife. “ How many more ! ” 

The jailer’s wife, being provided with no answer to the 
question, merely replied, “ One must have patience, my dear ” 
Three turnkeys, who entered responsive to the bell she rang, 
echoed the sentiment, and one added, “ For the love of Liberty; ” 
which sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion. 

The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, 
and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary 
how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep becomes 
manifest in all such places that are ill-cared for l 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 247 

“ In secret, too,” grumbled the jailer, looking at the written 
paper. “ As if I was not already full to bursting ! ” 

He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles 
Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour; some¬ 
times pacing to and fro in the strong arched room; sometimes 
resting on a stone seat; in either case detained to be imprinted 
on the memory of the chief and his subordinates. 

“ Come! ” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, 
“come with me, emigrant.” 

Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge ac¬ 
companied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging 
and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, 
vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The 
women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knit¬ 
ting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the most part 
standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room. 

In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime 
and disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But 
the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride was, their all at 
once rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner 
known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and 
courtesies of life. 

So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison 
manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappro¬ 
priate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that 
Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead. 
Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the 
ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the 
ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting 
their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes 
that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. 

It struck him motionless. The jailer standing at his side, 
and the other jailers moving about, who would have been well 
enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their func¬ 
tions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing 
mothers and blooming daughters who were there — with the 
apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature 
woman delicately bred — that the inversion of all experience 
and likelihood, which the scene of shadows presented, was 



£48 


A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


Heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long 
unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to 
these gloomy shades! 

“ In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” 
said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming for¬ 
ward, “ I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, 
and of condoling with you on the calamity that has brought 
you among us. May it soon terminate happily ! It would 
be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask 
your name and condition?” 

Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required infor¬ 
mation, in words as suitable as he could find. 

“ But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief jailer 
with his eyes, who moved across the room, “ that you are not 
in secret ? ” 

“ I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have 
heard them say so.” 

“ Ah, what a pity ! We so much regret it! But take 
courage ; several members of our society have been in secret, at 
first, and it has lasted but a short time.” Then he added, rais¬ 
ing his voice, “ I grieve to inform the society— in secret.” 

There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay 
crossed the room to a grated door where the jailer awaited him, 
and many voices — among which, the soft and compassionate 
voices of women were conspicuous — gave him good wishes and 
encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render the 
thanks of his heart; it closed under the jailer’s hand ; and the 
apparitions vanished from his sight for ever. 

The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. 
When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an 
hour already counted them), the jailer opened a low black door, 
and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, 
but was not dark. 

“ Yours,” said the jailer. 

“ Why am I confined alone ? ” 

“ How do I know ! ” 

“ I can buy pen, ink, and paper ? ” 

“ Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask 
them. At present, you may buy your food., and nothing more.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


249 


There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. 
As the jailer made a general inspection of these objects, and of 
the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered 
through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall oppo¬ 
site to him, that this jailer was so unwholesomely bloated, both 
in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned 
and filled with water. When the jailer was gone, he thought, 
in the same wandering way, “ Now am I left, as if I were dead.” 
Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it 
with a sick feeling, and thought, “ And here in these crawling 
creatures is the first condition of the body after death.” 

“Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, 
five paces by four and a half.” The prisoner walked to and fro 
in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city 
arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to 
them. “He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes.” The 
prisoner counted the measurement again, and paced faster, to 
draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. “ The 
ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one 
among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who 
was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light 
shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like .... Let 
us ride on again, for God’s sake, through the illuminated vil¬ 
lages with the people all awake! .... He made shoes, he 

made shoes, he made shoes.Five paces by four and a 

half.” With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the 
depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obsti¬ 
nately counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed 
to this extent — that it still rolled in like muffled drums, but 
with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose 
above them. 


CHAPTER II 

THE GRINDSTONE 

Tellson’s Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter 
of Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a court- 



250 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


yard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong 
gate. The house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived 
in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his own cook’s 
dress, and got across the borders. A mere beast of the chase 
flying from hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other 
than the same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate 
for whose lips had once occupied three strong men besides the 
cook in question. 

Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving them¬ 
selves from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by being 
more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the altar of 
the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur’s house had been first seques¬ 
trated, and then confiscated. For, all things moved so fast, and 
decree followed decree with that fierce precipitation, that now 
upon the third night of the autumn month of September, pa¬ 
triot emissaries of the law were in possession of Monseigneur’s 
house, and had marked it with the tricolour, and were drinking 
brandy in its state apartments. 

A place of business in London like Tellson’s place of business 
in Paris would soon have driven the House out of its mind and 
into the Gazette. For what would staid British responsibility 
and respectability have said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank 
courtyard, and even to a Cupid over the counter ? Yet such 
things were. Tellson’s had whitewashed the Cupid, but he was 
still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming (as he 
very often does) at money from morning to night. Bankruptcy 
must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in Lombard 
Street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of the 
immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, and 
also of clerks not at all old who danced in public on the slight¬ 
est provocation. Yet a French Tellson’s could get on with these 
things exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, 
no man had taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. 

What money would be drawn out of Tellson’s henceforth, 
and what would lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and 
jewels would tarnish in Tellson’s hiding-places, while the depos 
itors rusted in prisons, and when they should have violently 
perished; how many accounts with Tellson’s never to be bal- 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


251 


anced in this world must be carried over into the next, no man 
could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry 
could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat 
by a newly lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year 
was prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face 
there was a deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, 
or any object in the room distortedly reflect — a shade of horror. 

He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House 
of which he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It 
chanced that they derived a kind of security from the patriotic 
occupation of the main building, but the true-hearted old gentle¬ 
man never calculated about that. All such circumstances were 
indifferent to him, so that he did his duty. On the opposite 
side of the courtyard, under a colonnade, was extensive standing 
for carriages — where, indeed, some carriages of Monseigneur 
yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened two great 
flaring flambeaux, and, in the light of these, standing out in 
the open air, was a large grindstone — a roughly mounted thing 
which appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from some 
neighbouring smithy, or other work-shop. Rising and looking 
out of window at these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, 
and retired to his seat by the fire. He had opened, not only 
the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, and he had 
closed both again, and he shivered through his frame. 

From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, 
there came the usual night hum of the city, with now and then 
an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some 
unwonted sounds of a terrible nature were going up to Heaven. 

“ Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, “ that no 
one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May 
He have mercy on all who are in danger! ” 

Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he 
thought, “ They have come back ! ” and sat listening. But 
there was no loud irruption into the courtyard, as he had 
expected, and he heard the gate clash again, and all was quiet. 

The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that 
vague uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great charge 
would naturally awaken, with such feelings roused. It was 
well guarded, and he got up to go among the trusty people who 


252 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


were watching it, when his door suddenly opened, and two fig¬ 
ures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in amazement. 

Lucie and her father ! Lucie with her arms stretched out ta 
him, and with that old look of earnestness so concentrated and 
intensified, that it seemed as though it had been stamped upon 
her face expressly to give force and power to it in this one pas¬ 
sage of her life. 

“ What is this ! ” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. 
“ What is the matter 1 Lucie! Manette! What has happened ? 
What has brought you here ? What is it ? ” 

With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, 
she panted out in his arms, imploringly, “ Oh, my dear friend. 
My husband ! ” 

“ Your husband, Lucie ? ” 

“ Charles.” 

“ What of Charles ? ” 

“ Here.” 

“ Here, in Paris ? ” 

“ Has been here, some days — three or four — I don’t know 
how many—I can’t collect my thoughts. An errand of gener¬ 
osity brought him here unknown to us; he was stopped at the 
barrier, and sent to prison.” 

The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the 
same moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud 
noise of feet and voices came pouring into the courtyard. 

“ What is that noise 1 ” said the doctor, turning towards the 
window. 

“ Don’t look ! ” cried Mr. Lorry. “ Don’t look out! Ma- 
nette, for your life, don’t touch the blind ! ” 

The doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the 
window, and said, with a cool bold smile : — 

“ My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have 
been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris — in 
Paris ? In France — who, knowing me to have been a prisoner 
in the Bastille, would touch me, except to overwhelm me with 
embraces, or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given me 
a power that has brought us through the barrier, and gained us 
news of Charles there, and brought us here. I knew it would 
be so ; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger • I told 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 253 

Lucie so. — What is that noise 1 ” His hand was again upon 
the window. 

“ Don’t look ! ” cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. “ No, 
Lucie, my dear, nor you ! ” He got his arm round her, and 
held her. “ Don’t be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear 
to you that I know of no harm having happened to Charles; 
that I had no suspicion, even, of his being in this fatal place 
What prison is he in 'i ” 

“ La Force ! ” 

“ La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and 
serviceable in your life — and you were always both — you will 
compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you ; for more 
depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. There is no 
help for you in any action on your part to-night; you cannot 
possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you to 
do for Charles’s sake is the hardest thing to do of all. You 
must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me 
put you in a room at the back here. You must leave your 
father and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and 
Death in the world you must not delay.” 

“ I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that 
you know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are 
true.” 

The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and 
turned the key; then came hurrying back to the doctor, and 
opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his 
hand upon the doctor’s arm, and looked out with him into the 
courtyard. 

Looked out upon a throng of men and women ; not enough 
in number, or near enough, to fill the courtyard; not more than 
forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the house had 
let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to work at 
the grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for their 
purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot. 

But, such awful workers, and such awful work! 

The grindstone had a double handle, and turning at it 
madly were two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped 
back when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their faces 
up, were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the wildest 


254 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


savages in their most barbarous disguise. False eyebrows and 
false mustaches were stuck upon them, and their hideous coun¬ 
tenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with howling, 
and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want of 
sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted locks 
now flung forward over their eyes, now flung backward over 
their necks, some women held wine to their mouths that they 
might drink; and what with dropping blood, and what with 
dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck out 
of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and fire. 
The eye could not detect one creature in the group free from 
the smear of blood. Shouldering one another to get next at the 
sharpening-stone were men stripped to the waist, with the stain 
all over their limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with 
the stain upon those rags ; men devilishly set off with spoils of 
women’s lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those 
trifles through and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, 
all brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the 
hacked swords were tied to the wrists of those who carried them 
with strips of linen and fragments of dress; ligatures various 
in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as the frantic 
wielders of these weapons snatched them from the stream of 
sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red 
in their frenzied eyes, — eyes which any unbrutalised beholder 
would have given twenty years of life to petrify with a well- 
directed gun. 

All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning 
man, or of any human creature at any very great pass, could see 
a world if it were there. They drew back from the window, 
and the doctor looked for explanation in his friend’s ashy face. 

“ They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fear¬ 
fully round at the locked room, “ murdering the prisoners. If 
you are sure of what you say; if you really have the power you 
think you have — as I believe you have — make yourself known 
to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may be too late, 
I don’t know, but let it not be a minute later! ” 

Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of 
the room, and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained 
the blind. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


255 


His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impet¬ 
uous confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like 
water, carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at 
the stone. For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, 
and a murmur, and the unintelligible sound of his voice; and 
then Mr. Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, and in the midst of 
a line twenty men long, all linked shoulder to shoulder, and 
hand to shoulder, hurried out with cries of “ Live the Bastille 
prisoner ! Help for the Bastille prisoner’s kindred in La Force ! 
Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there ! Save the prisoner 
Evr^monde at La Force! ” and a thousand answering shouts. 

He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the 
window and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that 
her father was assisted by the people, and gone in search of her 
husband. He found her child, and Miss Pross with her ; but 
it never occurred to him to be surprised by their appearance 
until a long time afterwards, when he sat watching them in such 
quiet as the night knew. 

Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at 
his feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child 
down on his own bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the 
pillow beside her pretty charge. Oh, the long, long night, with 
the moans of the poor wife ! And oh, the long, long night, with 
no return of her father and no tidings! 

Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, 
and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and 
spluttered. “What is it?’’cried Lucie, affrighted. “Hush! 
The soldiers’ swords are sharpened there,” said Mr. Lorry. 
“ The place is National property now, and used as a kind of 
armoury, my love.” 

Twice more in all; but the last spell of work was feeble and 
fitful. Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly 
detached himself from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked 
out again. A man, so besmeared that he might have been a 
sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a field 
of slain, was rising from the pavement by the side of the grind¬ 
stone, and looking about him with a vacant air. Shortly, this 
worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of the 
carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous 


256 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his 
rest on its dainty cushions. 

The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry 
looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But 
the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, 
with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would 
never take away. 


CHAPTER III 

THE SHADOW 

One of the first considerations which arose in the business 
mind of Mr. Lorry, when business hours came round, was this: 
that he had no right to imperil Tellson’s by sheltering the 
wife of an emigrant prisoner under the Bank roof. His own 
possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and 
her child, without a moment’s demur ; but the great trust he 
held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a 
strict man of business. 

At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of 
finding out the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its 
master in reference to the safest dwelling-place in the distracted 
state of the city. But the same consideration that suggested him, 
repudiated him ; he lived in the most violent Quarter, and doubt¬ 
less was influential there, and deep in its dangerous workings. 

Noon coming, and the doctor not returning, and every 
minute’s delay tending to compromise Tellson’s, Mr. Lorry 
advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of 
hiring a lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near the 
Banking-house. As there was no business objection to this, 
and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, 
and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, 
Mr. Lorry wegt out in quest of such a lodging, and found a 
suitable one, high up in a removed by-street where the closed 
blinds in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of 
buildings marked deserted homes. 

To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child and 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


257 


Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could, and much 
more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, as a 
figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable knocking 
on the head, and returned to his own occupations. A disturbed 
and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly 
and heavily the day lagged on with him. 

It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank 
closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous night, 
considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the 
stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his presence, who, 
with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his name. 

“ Your servant,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Do you know me ? ” 

He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from 
forty-five to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, with¬ 
out any change of emphasis, the words : — 

“ Do you know me ? ” 

“ I have seen you somewhere.” 

“ Perhaps at my wine shop ? ” 

Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said : “ You come 
from Doctor Manette ? ” 

“ Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.” 

“ And what says he? What does he send me? 

Defarge gave into his anxious hand an open scrap of paper. 
It bore the words in the doctor’s writing : — 

“ Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. 
I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note from 
Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.” 

It was dated from La Force, within an hour. 

“Will you accompany me,” said Mr. Lorry, joyfully re¬ 
lieved after reading this note aloud, “to where his wife 
resides ? ” 

“ Yes,” returned Defarge. 

Scarcely noticing, as yet, in what a curiously reserved and 
mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and 
they went down into the courtyard. There, they found two 
women, one, knitting. 

“ Madame Defarge, surely! ” said Mr. Lorry, who had left 
her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago. 

“ It is she,” observed her husband. 


258 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Does madame go with us?” inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing 
that she moved as they moved. 

“Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and 
know the persons. It is for their safety.” 

Beginning to be struck by Defarge’s manner, Mr. Lorry 
looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women 
followed ; the second woman being The Vengeance. 

They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as 
they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were 
admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping alone. She was 
thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of 
her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his note — 
little thinking what it had been doing near him in the night, 
and might, but for a chance, have done to him. 

Dearest, — Take courage. I am well, and your father has 
influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child 
for me. 

That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her 
who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and 
kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, 
loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no response 
— dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting again. 

There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. 
She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, 
with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame 
Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and fore¬ 
head with a cold impassive stare. 

“My dear,” said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; “there 
are frequent risings in the streets ; and, although it is not likely 
they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those 
whom she has the power to protect at such times, to the end 
that she may know them — that she may identify them. I 
believe,” said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his reassuring words, 
as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself upon him 
more and more, “ I state the case, Citizen Defarge ? ” 

Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other 
answer than a gruff sound of acquiescence. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


259 


“ You had better, Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could 
to propitiate, by tone and manner, “ have the dear child here, 
and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English 
lady, and knows no French.” 

The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was 
more than a match for any foreigner was not to be shaken by 
distress and danger, appeared with folded arms, and observed 
in English to The Vengeance, whom her eyes first encountered, 
“Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope you are pretty well?” 
She also bestowed a British cough on Madame Defarge ; but 
neither of the two took much heed of her. 

“Is that his child?” said Madame Defarge, stopping in her 
work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little 
Lucie as if it were the finger of Fate. 

“Yes, madame,” answered Mr. Lorry, “this is our poor 
prisoner’s darling daughter, and only child.” 

The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party 
seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her 
mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and held 
her to her breast. The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge 
and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and dark, on both 
the mother and the child. 

“ It is enough, my husband,” said Madame Defarge. “ I have 
seen them. We may go.” 

But the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it — not 
visible and presented, but indistinct and withheld—to alarm 
Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame 
Defarge’s dress: — 

“You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him 
no harm. You will help me to see him if you can? ” 

“ Your husband is not my business here,” returned Madame 
Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure. “ It is 
the daughter of your father who is my business here.” 

“ For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For 
my child’s sake ! She will put her hands together and pray 
you to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these 
others.” 

Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked 
at her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his 


260 A TALE OP TWO CITIES 

thumb-nail and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner 

expression. . 

“What is it that your husband says in that little letter? 
asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. “ Influence; 
he says something touching influence.” 

“That my father,” said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper 
from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner 
and not on it, “ has much influence around him.” 

“ Surely it will release him ! ” said Madame Defarge. “ Let 
it do so.” 

“As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie, most earnestly, 1 
implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power 
that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it 
in his behalf. Oh, sister-woman, think of me. As a wife and 
mother! ” 

Madame Defarge looked coldly as ever at the suppliant, and 
said, turning to her friend The Vengeance: — 

“ The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we 
were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly 
considered? We have known their husbands and fathers laid 
in prison and kept from them, often enough? All our lives, 
we have seen our sister-women suffer, in themselves and in their 
children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, 
oppression and neglect of all kinds ? ” 

“We have seen nothing else,” returned The Vengeance. 

“ We have borne this a long time,” said Madame Defarge, turn¬ 
ing her eyes again upon Lucie. “Judge you! Is it likely that 
the trouble of one wife and mother would be much to us now ? ” 

She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance 
followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door. 

“ Courage, my dear Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. 
“ Courage, courage ! So far all goes well with us — much, 
much better than it has of late gone with many poor souls. 
Cheer up, and have a thankful heart.” 

“Iam not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems 
to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes.” 

“ Tut, tut! ” said Mr. Lorry; “ what is this despondency in 
the brave little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in 
it, Lucie.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


261 


But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark 
upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled 
him greatly. 


CHAPTER IY 

CALM IN STORM 

Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the 
fourth day of his absence. So much of what had happened in 
that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge of 
Lucie was so well concealed from her, that not until long after¬ 
wards, when France and she were wide apart, did she know 
that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all 
ages had been killed by the populace; that four days and 
nights had been darkened by this deed of horror; and that the 
air around her had been tainted by the slain. She only knew 
that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all politi¬ 
cal prisoners had been in danger, and that some had been 
dragged out by the crowd and murdered. 

To Mr. Lorry the doctor communicated, under an injunction 
of secrecy on which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd 
had taken him through a scene of carnage to the prison of La 
Force. That, in the prison he had found a self-appointed Tri¬ 
bunal sitting, before which the prisoners were brought singly, 
and by which they were-rapidly ordered to be put forth to be 
massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back 
to their cells. That, presented by his conductors to this Tri¬ 
bunal, he had announced himself by name and profession as 
having been for eighteen years a secret and an unaccused pris¬ 
oner in the Bastille; that, one of the body so sitting in judg¬ 
ment had risen and identified him, and that this man was 
Defarge. 

That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers 
on the table, that his son-in-law was among the living pris¬ 
oners, and had pleaded hard to the Tribunal — of whom some 
members were asleep and some awake, some dirty with mur¬ 
der and some clean, some sober and some not -— for his life and 
liberty, That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself 


262 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

as a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been 
accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the 
lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on the point 
of being at once released, when the tide in his favour met with 
some unexplained check (not intelligible to the doctor), which 
led to a few words of secret conference. That, the man sitting 
as President had then informed Doctor Manette that the pris¬ 
oner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held 
inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, on a signal, the 
prisoner was removed to the interior of the prison again; but, 
that he, the doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission 
to remain and assure himself that his son-in-law was, through 
no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whose mur¬ 
derous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceed¬ 
ings, that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in 
that Hall of Blood until the danger was over. 

The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food 
and sleep by intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over 
the prisoners who were saved had astounded him scarcely less 
than the mad ferocity against those who Were cut to pieces. 
One prisoner there was, he said, who had been discharged into 
the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had thrust a 
pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him and dress 
the wound, the doctor had passed out at the same gate, and 
had found him in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who 
were seated on the bodies of their victims. With an inconsist¬ 
ency as monstrous as anything in this awful nightmare, they 
had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man with the 
gentlest solicitude — had made a litter for him and escorted 
him carefully from the spot — had then caught up their weap¬ 
ons and plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the 
doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned away 
in the midst of it. 

As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched 
the face of his friend, now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving 
arose within him that such dread experiences would revive the 
old danger. But he had never seen his friend in his present 
aspect; he had never at all known him in his present character. 
For the first time the doctor felt, now, that his suffering was 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


268 


strength, and power. For the first time, he felt that in that 
sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could break the 
prison door of his daughter’s husband, and deliver him. “ It 
all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not mere waste and 
ruin. As my beloved child was helpful in restoring me to my¬ 
self, I will be helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself 
to her ; by the aid of Heaven I will do it! ” Thus, Doctor 
Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the 
resolute face, the calm, strong look and bearing of the man whose 
life always seemed to him to have been stopped, like a clock, for 
so many years, and then set going again with an energy which 
had lain dormant during the cessation of its usefulness, he 
believed. 

Greater things than the doctor had at that time to contend 
with would have yielded before his persevering purpose. While 
he kept himself in his place, as a physician whose business was 
with all degrees of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad 
and good, he used his personal influence so wisely, that he was 
soon the inspecting physician of three prisons and among them 
of La Force. He could now assure Lucie that her husband was 
no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the general body 
of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly, and brought sweet 
messages to her, straight from his lips ; sometimes her husband 
himself sent a letter to her (though never by the doctor’s hand), 
but she was not permitted to write to him ; for among the many 
wild suspicions of plots in the prison, the wildest of all pointed 
at emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanent 
connections abroad. 

This new life of the doctor’s was an anxious life, no doubt; 
still, the sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustain¬ 
ing pride in it. Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was 
a natural and worthy one; but he observed it as a curiosity. 
The doctor knew, that up to that time, his imprisonment had 
been associated in the minds of his daughter and his friend, 
with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness. Now 
that this was changed, and he knew himself to be invested 
through that old trial with forces to which they both looked for 
Charles’s ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far ex¬ 
alted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and 


264 A TALE OF TWO CITIES 

required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong. The 
preceding relative positions of himself and Lucie were reversed, 
yet only as the liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse 
them, for he could have had no pride but in rendering some 
service to her who had rendered so much to him. “ All curious 
to see,” thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, “ but 
all natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and 
keep it; it couldn’t be in better hands.” 

But though the doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, 
to get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him 
brought to trial, the public current of the time set too strong 
and fast for him. The new Era began; the king was tried, 
doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against the 
world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the 
great towers of Notre-Dame; three hundred thousand men, 
summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all 
the varying soils of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had been 
sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, 
on rock in gravel and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the 
South and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in 
the vineyards and the olive-grounds and among the cropped 
grass and the stubble of the corn, along the fruitful banks of 
the broad rivers, and in the sand of the seashore. What pri¬ 
vate solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year 
One of Liberty — the deluge rising from below, not falling 
from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not 
opened! 

There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relent¬ 
ing rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights 
circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening 
and the morning were the first day, other count of time there 
was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, 
as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the un¬ 
natural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the 
people the head of the king — and now, it seemed almost in the 
same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight 
weary months of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it 
grey. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


265 


And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which 
obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by 
so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or 
fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land; a law 
of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or 
life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any 
bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had com¬ 
mitted no offence, and could obtain no hearing; these things 
became the established order and nature of appointed things, 
and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks 
old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it 
had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the 
world — the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. 

It was the popular theme for jests: it was the best cure for 
headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it 
imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the 
National Razor which shaved close ; who kissed La Guillotine, 
looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It 
was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It super¬ 
seded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which 
the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed 
in where the Cross was denied. 

It sheared off heads so many, that it and the ground it most 
polluted were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toy- 
puzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again when the 
occasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, struck down the 
powerful, abolished the beautiful and good. Twenty-two friends 
of high public mark, twenty-one living and one dead, it had 
lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. 

Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the 
doctor walked with a steady head; confident in his power, 
cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that he would 
save Lucie’s husband at last. Yet the current of the time swept 
by, so strong and deep, and carried the time away so fiercely, 
that Charles had lain in prison one year and three months when 
the doctor was thus steady and confident. So much more 
wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that Decem¬ 
ber month, that the rivers of the South were encumbered with 
the bodies of the violently drowned by night, and prisoners were 


266 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


shot in lines and squares under the southern wintry sun. Still, 
the doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No 
man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a 
stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital 
and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, 
he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appear¬ 
ance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all 
other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any 
more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen 
years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals. 


CHAPTER Y 

THE WOOD-SAWYER 

One year and three months. During all that time Lucie 
was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine 
would strike off her husband’s head next day. Every day, 
through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled 
with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright women, brown-haired, 
black-haired, and grey; youths ; stalwart men and old ; gentle 
born and peasant born ; all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily 
brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome 
prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slake her 
devouring thirst. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death ; — 
the last, much the easiest to bestow, 0 Guillotine! 

If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels 
of the time, had stunned the doctor’s daughter into awaiting 
the result in idle despair, it would but have been with her as it 
was with many. But from the hour when she had taken the 
white head to her fresh young bosom in the garret of Saint 
Antoine, she had been true to her duties. She was truest to 
them ir the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good 
will always be. 

As soon as they were established in their new residence and 
her father had entered on the routine of his avocations, she 
arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband had 
been there. Everything had its appointed place and its ap- 



It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. 






















































































































































































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


267 


pointed time. Little Lucie s;he taught, as regularly, as if 
they had all been united in their English home. The slight 
devices with w T hich she cheated herself into the show of a belief 
that they would soon be reunited — the little preparations for 
his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and his books — 
these, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner 
especially, among the many unhappy souls in prison and the 
shadow of death, — were almost the only outspoken reliefs of 
her heavy mind. 

She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark 
dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child 
wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter 
clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old intent 
expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing; otherwise, 
she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at night on 
kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had re¬ 
pressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under 
Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered, “ Noth¬ 
ing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know 
that I can save him, Lucie.” 

They had not made the round of their changed life many 
weeks, when her father said to her, on coming home one 
evening: — 

“ My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which 
Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. 
When he can get to it — which depends on many uncertainties 
and incidents — he might see you in the street, he thinks, if 
you stood in a certain place that I can show you. But you will 
not be able to see him, my poor child, and even if you could, 
it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition.” 

“ Oh ! show me the place, my father, and I will go there 
every day.” 

From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. 
As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned 
resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for 
her child to be with her, they went together; at other times 
she was alone; but she never missed a single day. 

It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. 
The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning was the 


26S 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


only house at that end ; all else was wall. On the third day 
of her being there he noticed her. 

“ Good day, citizeness.” 

“ Good day, citizen.” 

This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had 
been established voluntarily some time ago, among the mdre 
thorough patriots; but it was now law for everybody. 

“ Walking here again, citizeness ? ” 

“You see me, citizen ! ” 

The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy 
of gesture (he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance 
at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers 
before his face to represent bars, peeped through them jocosely. 

“ But it’s not my business,” said he. And went on sawing 
his wood. 

Next day, he was looking out for her, and accosted her the 
moment she appeared. 

“ What! Walking here again, citizeness ? ” 

“Yes, citizen.” 

“ Ah ! A child, too. Your mother, is it not, my little citi¬ 
zeness 1 ” 

“Do I say yes, mamma 1 ?” whispered little Lucie, drawing 
close to her. 

“Yes, dearest.” 

“Yes, citizen.” 

“ Ah ! But it’s not my business. My work is my business. 
See my saw ! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, 
la, la ! And off his head comes ! ” 

The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket. 

“ I call myself the Sanson of the firewood guillotine. See 
here again ! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo ! And off her head 
comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle ! And 
off its head comes. All the family ! ” 

Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, 
but it was impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer was at 
work, and not be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good 
will, she always spoke to him first, and often gave him drink- 
money, which he readily received. 

He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


269 


quite forgotten him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, 
and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to 
herself to find him looking at her, with his knee on his bench 
and his saw stopped in its work. “ But it’s not my business ! ” 
he would generally say at those times, and would briskly fall to 
his sawing again. 

In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bit¬ 
ter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains 
of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie 
passed two hours of every day at this place; and every day, 
on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. Her husband saw 
her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in five or 
six times; it might be twice or thrice running; it might be, 
not for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough that he 
could and did see her when the chances served, and on that 
possibility she would have waited out the day, seven days a 
week. 

These occupations brought her round to the December month, 
wherein her father walked among the terrors with a steady 
head. On a lightly snowing afternoon she arrived at the usual 
corner. It was a day of some wild rejoicing, and a festival. 
She had seen the houses, as she came along, decorated with 
little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them; also, 
with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard inscription 
(tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indi¬ 
visible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death ! 

The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that 
its whole surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. 
He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who 
had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate difficulty. On 
his housetop, he displayed pike and cap, as a good citizen must, 
and in a window he had stationed his saw, inscribed as his 
“Little Sainte Guillotine” — for the great sharp female was 
by that time popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he 
was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite 
alone. 

But he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled 
movement and a shouting coming along, which filled her with 
fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came 


270 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


pouring round the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of 
whom was the wood-sawyer hand in hand with The Vengeance. 
There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and they 
were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other 
music than their own singing. They danced to the popular 
Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a 
gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, 
women danced together, men danced together, as hazard had 
brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of 
coarse red caps and coarser woollen rags ; but as they filled the 
place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition 
of a dance-figure gone raving mad arose among them. They 
advanced, retreated, struck at one another’s hands, clutched at 
one another’s heads, spun round alone, caught one another and 
spun round in pairs, until many of them dropped. While those 
were down, the rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round 
together: then the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and 
four they turned and turned until they all stopped at once, 
began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the 
spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped 
again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the 
width of the public way, and, with their heads low down and 
their hands high up, swooped screaming off. No fight could 
have been half so terrible as this dance. It was so emphatically 
a fallen sport — a something, once innocent, delivered over to 
all devilry — a healthy pastime changed into a means of anger¬ 
ing the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the heart. 
Such grace as was visible in it made it the uglier, showing how 
warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. 
The maidenly bosom bared to this, the pretty almost-child’s 
head thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing in this slough of 
blood and dirt, were types of the disjointed time. 

This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie 
frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer’s 
house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and 
soft as if it had never been. 

“ 0 my father ! ” for he stood before her when she lifted up 
the eyes she had momentarily darkened with her hand, “ such a 
cruel, bad sight*’* 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 271 

“ I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. 
Don’t be frightened ! Not one of them would harm you.” 

“ I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I 
think of my husband, and the mercies of these people —” 

“We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him 
climbing to the window, and I came to tell you. There is no 
one here to see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest 
shelving roof.” 

“ I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it! ” 

“You cannot see him, my poor dear? ” 

“No, father,” said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed 
her hand, “ no.” 

A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. “ I salute you, 
citizeness,” from the doctor. “ I salute you, citizen.” This in 
passing. Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow 
over the white road. 

“ Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air 
of cheerfulness and courage, for his sake. That was well done ; ” 
they had left the spot; “it shall not be in vain. Charles is 
summoned for to-morrow.” 

“ For to-morrow ! ” 

“ There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are 
precautions to be taken that could not be taken until he was 
actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not received 
the notice yet, but I know that he will presently be summoned 
for to-morrow, and removed to the Conciergerie; I have timely 
information. You are not afraid ? ” 

She could scarcely answer, “I trust in you.” 

“Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my 
darling; he shall be restored to you within a few hours; I have 
encompassed him with every protection. I must see Lorry.” 

He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within 
hearing. They both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. 
Three. Three tumbrils faring away with their dread loads over 
the hushing snow. 

“ I must see Lorry,” the doctor repeated, turning her another 
way. 

The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never 
left it. He and his books were in frequent requisition as to 


272 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


property confiscated and made national. What he could save 
for the owners, he saved. No better man living to hold fast, 
by what Tellson’s had in keeping, and to hold his peace. 

A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the 
Seine, denoted the approach of darkness. It was almost dark 
when they arrived at the Bank. The stately^ residence of Mon- 
seigneur was altogether blighted and deserted. Above a heap 
of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: National Prop¬ 
erty. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, 
Fraternity, or Death. 

Who could that be with Mr. Lorry—the owner of the riding- 
coat upon the chair — who must not be seen? From whom 
newly arrived did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take 
his favourite in his arms ? To whom did he appear to repeat 
her faltering words, when, raising his voice and turning his 
head towards the door of the room from which he had issued, 
he said: “Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for 
to-morrow.” 


CHAPTER VI 

TRIUMPH 

The dread Tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and 
determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every 
evening, and were read out by the jailers of the various prisons 
to their prisoners. The standard jailer-joke was, “Come out 
and listen to the Evening Paper, you inside there! ” 

“ Charles Evrdmonde, called Darnay ! ” 

So, at last, began the Evening Paper at La Force. 

When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot 
reserved for those who were announced as being thus fatally 
recorded. Charles Evrdmonde, called Darnay, had reason to 
know the usage; he had seen hundreds pass away so. 

His bloated jailer, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced 
over them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and 
went through the list, making a similar short pause at each 
name. There were twenty-three names, but only twenty were 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


273 


responded to; for one of the prisoners so summoned had died 
in jail and been forgotten, and two had been already guillotined 
and forgotten. The list was read in the vaulted chamber where 
Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his 
arrival. Every one of those had perished in the massacre; 
every human creature he had since cared for, and parted with, 
had died on the scaffold. 

There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the 
parting was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and 
the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of some 
games of forfeits and a little concert, for that evening. They 
crowded to the grates and shed tears there; but twenty places 
in the projected entertainments had to be refilled, and the time 
was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the common rooms 
and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs who 
kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were far 
from insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condi¬ 
tion of the time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a 
species of fervour or intoxication, known, without doubt, to 
have led some persons to brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and 
to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but a wild infection of 
the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons of pestilence, some 
of us will have a secret attraction to the disease — a terrible 
passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like won¬ 
ders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke 
them. 

The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the 
night in its vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, 
fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles Darnay’s 
name was called. All the fifteen were condemned, and the trials 
of the whole occupied an hour and a half. 

“ Charles Evrdmonde, called Darnay,” was at length arraigned. 

His Judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the 
rough red cap and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress other¬ 
wise prevailing. Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audi¬ 
ence, he might have thought that the usual order of things was 
reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men. The 
lowest, cruellest, and worst populace of a city, never without its 
quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing spirits of the 


274 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


scene; noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipat¬ 
ing, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, 
the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, 
some wore knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they 
looked on, many knitted. Among thefee last was one, with a 
spare piece of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was 
in a front row, by the side of a man whom he had never seen 
since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly remem¬ 
bered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice whispered 
in his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife; but what he 
most noticed in the two figures was, that although they were 
posted as close to himself as they could be, they never looked 
towards him. They seemed to be waiting for something with 
a dogged determination, and they looked at the Jury, but at 
nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in his 
usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. 
Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, 
who wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse 
garb of the Carmagnole. 

Charles Evrdmonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public 
prosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Repub¬ 
lic, under the decree which banished all emigrants on pain of 
Death. It was nothing that the decree bore date since his 
return to France. There he was, and there was the decree; he 
had been taken in France, and his head was demanded. 

“ Take off his head ! ” cried the audience. “ An enemy to 
the Republic! ” 

The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked 
the prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many 
years in England. 

Undoubtedly it was. 

Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? 

Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the 
law. 

Why not ? the President desired to know. 

Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was dis¬ 
tasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and 
had left his country — he submitted before the word emigrant 
in the present acceptation by the Tribunal was in use — to live 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 275 

by his own industry in England, rather than.on the industry of 
the overladen people of France. 

What proof had he of this ? 

He handed in the names of two witnesses : Thdophile Gabelle 
and Alexandre Manette. 

But he had married in England? the President reminded 

him. 

True, hut not an English woman. 

A citizeness of France ? 

Yes. By birth. 

Her name and family ? 

“ Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good 
physician who sits there.” 

This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in 
exaltation of the well-known good physician rent the hall. So 
capriciously were the people moved, the tears immediately rolled 
down several ferocious countenances which had been glaring at 
the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck 
him out into the street and kill him. 

On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had 
set his foot according to Doctor Manette’s reiterated instructions 
The same cautious counsel directed every step that lay before 
him, and had prepared every inch of his road. 

The President asked why had he returned to France when he 
did, and not sooner? 

He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he 
had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned ; 
whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the French 
language and literature. He had returned when he did, on the 
pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who repre¬ 
sented that his life was endangered by his absence. He had 
come back, to save a citizen’s life, and to bear his testimony, at 
whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal in 
the eyes of the Republic ? 

The populace cried enthusiastically, “No!” and the Presi¬ 
dent rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they 
continued to cry “ No ! ” until they left off, of their own will. 

The President required the name of that Citizen. The 
accused explained that the citizen was his first witness. He 


276 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


also referred with confidence to the citizen’s letter, which had 
been taken from him at the Barrier, but which he did not doubt 
would be found among the papers then before the President. 

The doctor had taken care that it should be there, — had 
assured him that it would be there, — and at this stage of the 
proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was 
called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with 
infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of business 
imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of the 
Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly over¬ 
looked in his prison of the Abbaye — in fact, had rather passed 
out of the Tribunal’s patriotic remembrance — until three days 
ago; when he had been summoned before it, and had been set 
at liberty on the Jury’s declaring themselves satisfied that the 
accusation against him was answered, as to himself, by the sur¬ 
render of the citizen Evrdmonde, called Darnay. 

Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal 
popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great im¬ 
pression ; but as he proceeded, as he showed that the Accused 
was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment; 
that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and 
devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile; that, so far 
from being in favour with the Aristocrat government there, he 
had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of England 
and friend of the United States — as he brought these circum¬ 
stances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the 
straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the 
populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to 
Monsieur Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, 
who, like himself, had been a witness on that English trial and 
could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared that they 
had heard enough, and that they were ready with their votes if 
the President were content to receive them. 

At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), 
the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were 
in the prisoner’s favour, and the President declared him free. 

Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which 
the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better 
impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


277 


as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage. No 
man can decide now to which of these motives such extraordi¬ 
nary scenes were referable; it is probable, to a blending of all 
the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was the 
acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood 
at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed 
upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at 
him, that after his long and unwholesome confinement he was 
in danger of fainting from exhaustion; none the less because he 
knew very well, that the very same people, carried by anothei 
current, would have rushed at him with the same intensity, to 
rend him to pieces and strew him over the streets. 

His removal, to make way for other accused persons who 
were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses for the 
moment. Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of 
the Republic, forasmuch as they had not assisted it by word or 
deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and the 
nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to him 
before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty-four 
hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary 
prison sign of Death —- a raised finger — and they all added in 
words, “ Long live the Republic ! ” 

The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their 
proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from 
the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there 
seemed to be every face he had seen in Court — except two, 
for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the con¬ 
course made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, 
all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river, 
on the bank of which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run 
mad, like the people on the shore. 

They put him into a great chair they had among them, and 
which they had taken either out of the Court itself, or one of 
its rooms or passages. Over the chair they had thrown a red 
flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with a red 
cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the doctor’s 
entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home on men’s 
shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, 
and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of 


278 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in con¬ 
fusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. 

In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and 
pointing him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy 
streets with the prevailing Republican colour, in winding and 
tramping through them, as they ha$ reddened them below the 
snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus into the court¬ 
yard of the building where he lived. Her father had gone on 
before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his 
feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. 

As he held her to his heart, and turned her beautiful head 
between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and 
her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people, fell 
to dancing. Instantly, all the rest fell to dancing, and the 
courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. Then they ele¬ 
vated into the vacant chair a young woman from the crowd to 
be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then, swelling and 
overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river’s 
bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every 
one and whirled them away. 

After grasping the doctor’s hand, as he stood victorious and 
proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who 
came panting in breathless from his struggle against the water¬ 
spout of the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was 
lifted up to clasp her arms around his neck; and after embrac¬ 
ing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her; he took 
his wife in his arms and carried her up to their rooms. 

“ Lucie ! My own ! I am safe.” 

“ 0 dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees 
as I have prayed to Him.” 

They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When 
she was again in his arms, he said to her : — 

“And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in 
all this France could have done what he has done for me.” 

She laid her head upon her father’s breast as she had laid 
his poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was 
happy in the return he had made her, he was recompensed foi 
his suffering, he was proud of his strength. “ You must not 
be weak, my darling,” he remonstrated; “don’t tremble so. I 
have saved him.” 


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279 


CHAPTER VII 

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR 

“ I have saved him.” It was not another of the dreams in 
which he had often come back; he was really here. And yet 
his wife trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her. 

All the air around was so thick and dark, the people were so 
passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so con¬ 
stantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it was 
so impossible to forget that many as blameless as her husband 
and as dear to others as he was to her, every day shared the 
fate from which he had been clutched, that her heart could not 
be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. The 
shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and 
even now the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. 
Her mind pursued them, looking for him among the Con¬ 
demned; and then she clung closer to his real presence and 
trembled more. 

Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority 
to this woman’s weakness, which was wonderful to see. No 
garret, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower, now ! He had accomplished the task he had set him¬ 
self, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let 
them all lean upon him. 

Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only 
because that was the safest way of life, involving the least 
offence to the people, but because they were not rich, and 
Charles throughout his imprisonment had had to pay heavily 
for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the living 
of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and partly 
to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen 
and citizeness who acted as porters at the courtyard gate ren¬ 
dered them occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly trans¬ 
ferred to them by Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, 
and had his bed there every night. 

It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible, of 
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or 


280 


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door-post of every house, the name of every inmate must be 
legibly inscribed in letters of a certain size, at a certain con¬ 
venient height from the ground. Mr. Jerry Cruncher’s name, 
therefore, duly embellished the door-post down below; and as 
the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name him¬ 
self appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Ma- 
nette had employed to add to t^e list the name of Charles 
Evr^monde, called Darnay. 

In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all 
the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In the doctor’s 
little household, as in very many others, the articles of daily 
consumption that were wanted were purchased every evening, 
in small quantities, and at various small shops. To avoid 
attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as possible for 
talk and envy, was the general desire. 

For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had 
discharged the office of purveyors ; the former carrying the 
money, the latter the basket. Every afternoon at about the 
time when the public lamps were lighted, they fared forth on 
this duty, and made and brought home such purchases as were 
needful. Although Miss Pross, through her long association 
with a French family, might have known as much of their 
language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no 
mind in that direction; consequently she knew no more of 
“that nonsense” (as she was pleased to call it) than Mr. 
Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing was to plump a 
noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any intro¬ 
duction in the nature of an article, and, if it happened not to be 
the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, 
lay hold of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was con¬ 
cluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding up, as 
a statement of its just price, one finger less than the merchant 
held up, whatever his number might be. 

“Now, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red 
with felicity, “ if you are ready, I am.” 

Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross’s service. He 
had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his 
sniky head down. 

“There’s all manner of things wanted,” said Miss Pross^ “ and 



Mr. Jerry Cruncher’s name duly embellished the doorpost below. 





















































































































































































































































































































































































































































i 









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281 


we shall have a precious time of it. We want wine, among 
the rest. Nice toasts these Redheads will be drinking, wher¬ 
ever we buy it.” 

“ It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should 
think,” retorted Jerry, “whether they drink your health or the 
Old Un’s.” 

“ Who’s he ? ” said Miss Pross. 

Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as 
meaning “ Old Nick’s.” 

“ Ha ! ” said Miss Pross, “ it doesn’t need an interpreter to 
explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but one, 
and it’s Midnight Murder and Mischief.” 

“ Hush, dear ! Pray, pray, be cautious ! ” cried Lucie. 

“ Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be cautious,” said Miss Pross; “ but 
I may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no 
oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of embracings 
all round, going on in the streets. Now, Ladybird, never 
you stir from that fire till I come back. Take care of the dear 
husband you have recovered, and don’t move your pretty head 
from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! 
May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?” 

“ I think you may take that liberty,” the doctor answered, 
smiling. 

“ For gracious’ sake don’t talk about Liberty; we have 
quite enough of that,” said Miss Pross. 

“ Hush, dear ! Again? ” Lucie remonstrated. 

“ Well, my sweet,” said Miss Pross, nodding her head 
emphatically, “ the short and the long of it is, that I am a 
subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third,” 
Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; “ and as such, my maxim 
is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On 
him our hopes we fix, God save the King! ” 

Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated 
the words after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. 

“I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, 
though I wish you had never taken that cold in your voice,” 
said Miss Pross approvingly. “ But the question, Doctor 
Manette. Is there” — it was the good creature’s way to 
affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety 


282 


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with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner — 
“ is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place? ” 

“ I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.” 

“ Heigh-ho-hum! ” said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a 
sigh as she glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the light 
of the fire, “ then we must have patience and wait: that’s 
all. We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my brother 
Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher ! — Don’t you move, 
Ladybird ! ” 

They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, 
and the child by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back 
presently from the Banking-house. Miss Pross had lighted 
the lamp, but had put it aside in a corner, that they might 
enjoy the firelight undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her grand¬ 
father with her hands clasped through his arm; and he, in a 
tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story 
of a great and powerful Fairy, who had opened a prison wall 
and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a service. 
All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than 
she had been. 

“ What is that! ” she cried, all at once. 

“ My dear! ” said her father, stopping in his story, and lay¬ 
ing his hand on hers, “ command yourself. What a disordered 
state you are in ! The least thing — nothing — startles you. 
You, your father’s daughter ? ” 

“ I thought, my father,” said Lucie, excusing herself with a 
pale face and in a faltering voice, “ that I heard strange feet 
upon the stairs.” 

“ My love, the staircase is as still as Death.” 

As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. 

“0 father, father! What can this be! Hide Charles 
Save him! ” 

“ My child,” said the doctor, rising and laying his hand upon 
her shoulder, “ I have saved him. What weakness is this, my 
dear ! Let me go to the door.” 

He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening 
outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the 
floors, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres and 
pistols, entered the room. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


283 


“ The Citizen Evr^monde, called Darnay,” said the first. 

“ Who seeks him 1 ” answered Darnay. 

“I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evrdmonde; I 
saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner 
of the Republic.” 

The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and 
child clinging to him. 

“ Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner ? ” 

“It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, 
and will know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow.” 

Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into 
stone that he stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a 
statue made to hold it, moved after these words were spoken, 
put the lamp down, and confronting the speaker, and taking 
him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red woollen shirt, 
said: —- 

“ You know him, you have said. Do you know me ? ” 

“Yes, I know 7 you, Citizen Doctor.” 

“We all know you, Citizen Doctor,” said the other three. 

He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a 
lower voice, after a pause : — 

“ Will you answer his question to me then ? How does this 
happen 1 ” 

“ Citizen Doctor,” said the first reluctantly, “ he has been 
denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,” point¬ 
ing out the second who had entered, “ is from Saint Antoine.” 

The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added : — 

• “ He is accused by Saint Antoine.” 

“ Of what 1 ” asked the doctor. 

“Citizen Doctor,” said the first, with his former reluctance, 
“ ask no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, 
without doubt you as a good patriot will be happy to make 
them. The Republic goes before all. The People is supreme. 
Evr^monde, we are pressed.” 

“One word,” the doctor entreated. “Will you tell me who 
denounced him ? ” 

“ It is against rule,” answered the first; “ but you can ask 
Him of Saint Antoine here.” 

The doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved 


284 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length 
said: — 

“Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced — 
and gravely — by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by 
one other.” 

“ What other ? ” 

“ Do you ask, Citizen Doctor 1 ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Then,” said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, “ you 
will be answered to-morrow. Now I am dumb ! ” 


CHAPTER VIII 

A HAND AT CARDS 

Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss 
Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed 
the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her mind 
the number of indispensable purchases she had to make. Mr. 
Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They both 
looked to the right and to the left, into most of the shops they 
passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, 
and turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of 
talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty river, blurred to 
the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with harsh noises, 
showed where the barges were stationed in which the smiths 
worked, making guns for the Army of the Republic. Woe to 
the man who played tricks with that Army, or got undeserved 
promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never 
grown, for the National Razor shaved him close. 

Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a 
measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of the 
wine they wanted. After peeping into several wine-shops, she 
stopped at the sign of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, 
not far from the National Palace, once (and twice) the Tuileries, 
where the aspect of things rather took her fancy. It had a 
quieter look than any other place of the same description they 
had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was not so red 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


285 


as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher and finding him of hei 
opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of 
Antiquity, attended by her cavalier. 

Slightly .observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe 
in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of the 
one bare-breasted, bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman reading 
a journal aloud, and of the others listening to him ; of the weap¬ 
ons worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the two or three 
customers fallen forward asleep, who, in the popular, high¬ 
shouldered, shaggy, black spencer, looked, in that attitude, like 
slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers ap¬ 
proached the counter, and showed what they wanted. 

As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another 
man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face 
Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered 
a scream, and clapped her hands. 

In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That 
somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference 
of opinion, was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see 
somebody fall, but only saw a man and woman standing staring 
at each other; the man with all the outward aspect of a French¬ 
man and a thorough Republican; the woman, evidently English. 

What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the dis¬ 
ciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that 
it was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so 
much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector, 
though they had been all ears. But they had no ears for 
anything in their surprise. For it must be recorded, that not 
only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation ; but Mr. 
Cruncher — though it seemed on his own separate and individual 
account — was in a state of the greatest wonder. 

“What is the matter?” said the man who had caused Miss 
Pross to scream ; speaking in a vexed abrupt voice (though in a 
low tone), and in English. 

“Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!” cried Miss Pross, cDnping 
her hands again. “ After not setting eyes upon you or hearing 
of you for so long a time, do I find you here ! ” 

“ Don’t call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of 
me 1 ” asked the man, in a furtive frightened way. 


286 


A T^LE OF TWO CITIES 


«Brother, brother!” cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. 

Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such a 
cruel question! ” 

“ Then hold your meddlesome tongue,” said Solomon, “ and 
come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and 
come out. Who’s this man 1 ” 

Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by 
no means affectionate brothel, said, through her tears, “ Mr. 
Cruncher.” 

“ Let him come out too,” said Solomon. “Does he think me 
a ghost 1 ” 

Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He 
said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths 
of her reticule through her tears with great difficulty, paid for 
the wine. As she did so, Solomon turned to the followers of 
the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and offered a few 
words of explanation in the French language, which caused 
them all to relapse into their former places and pursuits. 

“Now,” said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, 
“ what do you want ? ” 

“How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever 
turned my love away from! ” cried Miss Pross, “ to give me 
such a greeting, and show me no affection.” 

“ There. Con-found it! There,” said Solomon, making a 
dab at Miss Pross’s lips with his own. “Now are you content % ” 

Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. 

“ If you expect me to be surprised,” said her brother Solomon, 
“ I am not surprised. I knew you were here ; I know of most 
people who are here. If you really don’t want to endanger my 
existence — which I half believe you do — go your ways as soon 
as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I am an official.” 

“ My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross, cast¬ 
ing up her tear-fraught eyes, “ that had the makings in him of 
one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an 
official among foreigners, and such foreigners ! I would almost 
sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his — ” 

“ I said so ! ” cried her brother, interrupting. “ I knew it! 
You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Sus¬ 
pected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on ! ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


287 


“The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid ! ” cried Miss 
Pross. “Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, 
though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but 
one alfectionate word to me, and tell me there is nothing angry 
or estranged between us, and I will detain you no longer.” 

Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them 
had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not 
known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that 
this precious brother had spent her money and left her! 

He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far 
more grudging condescension and patronage than he could have 
shown if their relative merits and positions had been reversed 
(which is invariably the case, all the world over), when Mr. 
Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, hoarsely and unex¬ 
pectedly interposed with the following singular question : — 

“I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your 
name is John Solomon, or Solomon John? ” 

The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He 
had not previously uttered a word. 

“Come!” said Mr. Cruncher. “Speak out, you know.” 
(Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.) 
“John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, 
and she must know, being your sister. And / know you’re 
John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regard¬ 
ing that name of Pross, likewise. That warn’t your name over 
the water.” 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ Well, I don’t know all I mean, for I can’t call to mind 
what your name was over the water.” 

“ No?” 

“ No. But I’ll swear it was a name of two syllables.” 

“ Indeed ? ” 

“Yes. T’other one’s was one syllable. I know you. You 
was a spy-witness at the Bailey. What in the name of the 
Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that 
time ? ” 

“ Barsad,” said another voice striking in. 

“ That’s the name for a thousand pound ! ” cried Jerry. 

The speaker who struck in was Sydney Carton. He had his 


288 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


hands behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he 
stood at Mr. Cruncher’s elbow as negligently as he might have 
stood at the Old Bailey itself. 

“Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. 
Lorry’s, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I 
would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless 
I could be useful; I present ^myself here, to beg a little talk 
with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother 
than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad was not a 
Sheep of the Prisons.” 

Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the 
jailers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him 
how he dared — 

“ I’ll tell you,” said Sydney. “ I lighted on you, Mr. Bar- 
sad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was 
contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a 
face to be remembered, and I remember faces well. Made 
curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, 
to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the mis¬ 
fortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your 
direction. I walked into the wine shop here, close after you, 
and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your 
unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going about 
among your admirers, the nature of your calling. And gradu¬ 
ally, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into a 
purpose, Mr. Barsad.” 

“What purpose ? ” the spy asked. 

“ It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain 
in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some 
minutes of your company — at the office of Tellson’s Bank, for 
instance ? ” 

“ Under a threat? ” 

“ Oh ! Did I say that! ” 

“ Then why should I go there ? ” 

“ Really, Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.” 

“Do you mean that you won’t say, sir?” the spy irresolutely 
asked. 

“ You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won’t.” 

Carton’s negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


289 


aid of his quickness and skill in such a business as he had in 
his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. 
His practised eye saw it and made the most of it. 

“Now, I told you so,” said the spy, casting a reproachful 
look at his sister; “ if any trouble comes of this, it’s your 
doing.” 

“ Come, come, Mr. Barsad ! ” exclaimed Sydney. “ Don’t be 
ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might 
not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to 
make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go with me to the 
Bank?” 

“ I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with you.” 

“I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the 
corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. 
This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in,, 
unprotected ; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite 
him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. Are we ready ? Come then ! ” 

Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her 
life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney’s arm 
and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to 
Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of 
inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light 
manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too much 
occupied then, with fears for the brother who so little deserved 
her affection, and with Sydney’s friendly reassurances, adequately 
to heed what she observed. 

They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the 
way to Mr. Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’ walk. 
John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side. 

Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before 
a cheery little log or two of fire — perhaps looking into their 
blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from 
Tellson’s, who had looked into the red coals at the Royal George 
at Dover, now a good many years ago. He burned his head as 
they entered, and showed the surprise with which he saw a 
stranger. 

“Miss Pross’s brother, sir,” said Sydney. “Mr. Barsad.” 

“ Barsad ? ” repeated the old gentleman, “ Barsad ? J have 
an association with the name — and with the face.” 


290 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,'’ observed 
Carton coolly. . “Pray sit down.” 

As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. 
Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, “ Witness at that 
trial.” Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his 
new visitor with an undisguised look of abhorrence. 

“ Mr. Barsad has been recpgnised by Miss Pross as the affec¬ 
tionate brother you have heard of,” said Sydney, “and has 
acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay 
has been arrested again.” 

Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, 
“ What do you tell me ! I left him safe and free within these 
two hours, and am about to return to him ! ” 

“ Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad 1 ” 

“ Just now, if at all.” 

“ Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,” said Sydney, 
“ and I have it from Mr. Barsad’s communication to a friend 
and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has 
taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw them 
admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that he is 
retaken.” 

Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that it 
was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sen¬ 
sible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he 
commanded himself, and was silently attentive. 

“ Now, I trust,” said Sydney to him, “ that the name and 
influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to¬ 
morrow— you said he would be before the Tribunal again 
to-morrow, Mr. Barsad ? — ” 

“ Yes; I believe so.” 

“ — In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not 
be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor 
Manette’s not having had the power to prevent this arrest.” 

“ He may not have known of it beforehand,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we 
remember how identified he is with his son-in-law.” 

“That’s true,” Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled 
hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. 

“In short,” said Sydney, “this is a desperate time, when 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


291 


desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the doc¬ 
tor play the winning game ; I will play the losing one. No 
man’s life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by 
the people to-day may be condemned to-morrow. Now, the 
stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a 
friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself 
to win is Mr. Barsad.” 

“You need have good cards, sir,” said the spy. 

“I’ll run them over. I’ll see what I hold. — Mr. Lorry, 
you know what a brute I am; I wish you’d give me a little 
brandy.” 

It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful — drank 
off another glassful — pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. 

“Mr. Barsad,” he went on, in the tone of one who really was 
looking over a hand at cards : “ Sheep of the prisons, emissary 
of republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always 
spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for be¬ 
ing English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of sub¬ 
ornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself 
to his employers under a false name. That’s a very good card. 
Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French gov¬ 
ernment, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English 
government, the enemy of France and freedom. That’s an 
excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspi¬ 
cion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic 
English government, is the spy of Pitt the treacherous foe of 
the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and 
agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. 
That’s a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, 
Mr. Barsad?” 

“Not to understand your play,” returned the spy, somewhat 
uneasily. 

“ I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest 
Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see 
what you have. Don’t hurry.” 

He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of 
brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of 
his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denuncia¬ 
tion of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank another glassful. 


292 


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“ Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.” 

It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw 
losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown 
out of his honourable employment in England, through too 
much unsuccessful hard swearing there, — not because he was 
not wanted there; our English reasons for vaunting our supe¬ 
riority to secrecy and spies ^re of very modern date, — he knew 
that he had crossed the ' Channel, and accepted service in 
France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his 
own countrymen there; gradually, as a tempter and an eaves¬ 
dropper among the natives. He knew that under the over¬ 
thrown government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and 
Defarge’s wine-shop; had received from the watchful police 
such heads of information concerning Dr. Manette’s imprison¬ 
ment, release, and history, as should serve him for an introduc¬ 
tion to familiar conversation with the Defarges ; and tried them 
on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with them signally. 
He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that 
terrible woman had knitted when he talked with her, and had 
looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He had since 
seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again 
produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives 
the guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one 
employed as he was did, that he was never safe ; that flight was 
impossible; that he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; 
and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and treachery in 
furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down 
upon him. Once denounced, and on such grave grounds as had 
just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that the dread¬ 
ful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many 
proofs would produce against him that fatal register, and would 
quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men 
soon terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit to 
justify the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. 

“ You scarcely seem to like your hand,” said Sydney, with 
the greatest composure. “Do you play?” 

“ I think, sir,” said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he 
turned to Mr. Lorry, “ I may appeal to a gentleman of your 
years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


293 


much your junior, whether he can under any circumstances 
reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has 
spoken. I admit that I am a spy, and that it is considered a 
discreditable station — though it must be filled by somebody; 
but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean him¬ 
self as to make himself one ? ” 

“ I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad,” said Carton, taking the 
answer on himself, and looking at his watch, “ without any 
scruple, in a very few minutes.” 

“I should have hoped, gentlemen both,” said the spy, always 
striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, “that your 
respect for my sister — ” 

“ I could not better testify my respect for your sister than 
by finally relieving her of her brother,” said Sydney Carton. 

“ You think not, sir ? ” 

“ I have thoroughly made up my mind about it.” 

The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with 
his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual 
demeanour, received such a check from the inscrutability of 
Carton, — who was a mystery to wiser and honester men than 
he, — that it faltered here and failed him. While he was at a 
loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contemplating cards: 

“ And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression 
that I have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That 
friend and fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in 
the country prisons ; who was he 1 ” 

“ French. You don’t know him,” said the spy quickly. 

“ French, eh ? ” repeated Carton musing, and not appearing 
to notice him at all, though he echoed his word. “Well, he 
may be.” 

“Is, I assure you,” said the spy ; “ though it’s not important.” 

“Though it’s not important,” repeated Carton, in the same 
mechanical way — “ though it’s not important — No, it’s not 
important. No. Yet I know the face.” 

“ I think not. I am sure not. It can’t be,” said the spy. 

“It — can’t — be,” muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, 
and filling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. 
“Can’t — be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I 
thought ? ” 


294 


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“ Provincial,” said the spy. 

“ No. Foreign ! ” cried Carton, striking his open hand on 
the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. “ Cly! Dis¬ 
guised, but the same man. We had that man before us at the 

Old Bailey.” _ . 

“Now, there you are hasty, sir,” said Barsad, with a smile 
that gave his aquiline nos^ an extra inclination to one side; 
“ there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who 
I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of time, was a part¬ 
ner of mine) has been dead several years. I attended him in 
his last illness. He was buried in London, at the church of 
Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity with the black¬ 
guard multitude at the moment prevented my following his 
remains, but I helped to lay him in his coffin.” 

Here, Mr/Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most 
remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, 
he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising 
and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher’s 
head. 

“ Let us be reasonable,” said the spy, “ and let us be fair. 
To show you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded 
assumption yours is, I will lay before you a certificate of Cly s 
burial, which I happen to have carried in my pocket-book,” — 
with a hurried hand he produced and opened it, — “ ever since. 
There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take it in 
your hand ; it’s no forgery.” 

Here Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elon¬ 
gate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair 
could not have been more violently on end if it had been that 
moment dressed by the Cow with the crumpled horn in the 
house that Jack built. 

Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and 
touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. 

“ That there Roger Cly, master,” said Mr. Cruncher, with a 
taciturn and iron-bound visage. “ So you put him in his coffin ? J 
“I did.” 

“ Who took him out of it ? ” 

Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, “ What do 
you mean ? ” 


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295 


“ I mean,” said Mr. Cruncher, “ that he warn’t never in it. 
No! Not he! I’ll have my head took off, if he was ever 
in it.” 

The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked 
in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. 

“I tell you,” said Jerry, “that you buried paving-stones and 
earth in that there coffin. Don’t go and tell me that you buried 
Cly. It was a take-in. Me and two more knows it.” 

“ How do you know it ? ” 

“ What’s that to you ? Ecod! ” growled Mr. Cruncher, 
“ it’s you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your shame¬ 
ful impositions upon tradesmen ! I’d catch hold of your throat 
and choke you for half a guinea.” 

Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amaze¬ 
ment at this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher 
to moderate and explain himself. 

“ At another time, sir,” he returned evasively; “ the present 
time is ill-conwenient for explainin’. What I stand to is, that 
he knows well wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. 
Let him say he w'as, in so much as a word of one syllable, and 
I’ll either catch hold of his throat and choke him for half a 
guinea,” — Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as quite a liberal offer, 
— “or I’ll out and announce him.” 

“Humph ! I see one thing,” said Carton. “I hold another 
card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Sus¬ 
picion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you 
are in communication with another aristocratic spy of the same 
antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has the mystery about 
him of having feigned death and come to life again ! A plot in 
the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong 
card — a certain Guillotine card ! Do you play ? ” 

“No!” returned the spy. “I throw up. I confess that 
we were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only 
got away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, 
and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would 
have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this man 
knows it was a sham is a wonder of wonders to me.” 

“ Never you trouble your head about this man,” retorted the 
contentious Mr. Cruncher; “you’ll have trouble enough with 


296 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


giving your attention to that gentleman. And look here! 
Once more!”—Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained from 
making rather an ostentatious parade of his liberality - I d 
catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea.” 

The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, 
and said, with more decision, “ It has come to a point. I go 
on duty soon, and can’t overstay n^y time. You told me you 
had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no use asking too 
much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office, putting my 
head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my life to 
the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, 
I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are 
all desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you if I 
think proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls, 
and so can others. Now, what do you want with me? . 

“ Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie ? ” 
“ I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape 
possible,” said the spy firmly. 

“Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are 
a turnkey at the Conciergerie ? ” 

“ I am sometimes.” 

“You can be when you choose?” 

“ I can pass in and out when I choose.” 

Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it 
slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It 
being all spent, he said, rising : — 

“ So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as 
well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between 
you and me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have 
one final word alone.” 



CHAPTER IX 


THE GAME MADE 


While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in 
the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was 
heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and 
mistrust. That honest tradesman’s manner of receiving the 


A TALE OP TWO CITIES 


297 


look did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on which 
he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and were 
trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very ques¬ 
tionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry’s eye 
caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough 
requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if 
ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness 
of character. 

“Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry, “come here.” 

Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoul¬ 
ders in advance of him. 

“What have you been, besides a messenger?” 

After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at 
his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of reply¬ 
ing, “ Agricultooral character.” 

“My mind misgives me much,” said Mr. Lorry, angrily 
shaking a forefinger at him, “ that you have used the respect¬ 
able and great House of Tellson’s as a blind, and that you have 
had an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. If you 
have, don’t expect me to befriend you when you get back to 
England. If you have, don’t expect me to keep your secret. 
Tellson’s shall not be imposed upon.” 

“I hope, sir,” pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, “that a 
gentleman like yourself wot I’ve had the honour of odd jobbing 
till I’m grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, 
even if it wos so — I don’t say it is, but even if it wos. And 
which it is to be took into account that if it wos, it wouldn’t, 
even then, be all o’ one side. There’d be two sides to it. 
There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking 
up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t pick up his 
fardens — fardens ! no, nor yet his half fardens — half fardens ! 
no, nor yet his quarter — a banking away like smoke at Tell¬ 
son’s, and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on 
the sly, a going in and going out to their own carriages — ah ! 
equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that ’ud be imposing, 
too, on Tellson’s. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the 
gander. And here’s Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the 
Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, a 
floppin’ again the business to that degree as is ruinating—« 


298 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


stark ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors’ wives don’t 
flop — ca tch ’em at it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes 
in favour of more patients, and how can you rightly have one 
without the t’other? Then, wot with undertakers, and wot 
with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private 
watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn’t get 
much by it, even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, 
would never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He’d never have 
no good of it; he’d want all along to be out of the line, if he 
could see his way out, being once in — even if it wos so.” 

“Ugh!” cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, “I 
am shocked at the sight of you.” 

“ Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,” pursued Mr. 
Cruncher, “even if it wos so, which I don’t say it is — ” 

“ Don’t prevaricate,” said Mr. Lorry. 

“ No, I will not , sir,” returned Mr. Cruncher, as if nothing 
were further from his thoughts or practice, — “ which I don’t 
say it is — wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. 
Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of 
mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, wot will errand 
you, message you, general-light-job you, till your heels is where 
your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it wos so, 
which I still don’t say it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, 
sir), let that there boy keep his father’s place, and take care of 
his mother; don’t blow upon that boy’s father — do not do it, 
sir — and let that father go into the line of the reg’lar diggin’, 
and make amends for what he would have un-dug — if it wos 
so — fly diggin’ of ’em in with a will, and with conwictions re¬ 
spectin’ the futur’ keepin’ of ’em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,” said 
Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an 
announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his dis¬ 
course, “is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man 
don’t see all this here a goin’ on dreadful round him, in the way 
of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to 
bring the price down to porterage and hardly that, without 
havin’ his serious thoughts of things. And these here would be 
mine, if it wos so, entreatin’ of you fur to bear in mind that 
wot I said just now. I up and said in the good cause when J 
might have kep’ it back.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


299 


“That at least is true,” said Mr. Lorry. “Say no more 
now. It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you 
deserve it, and repent in action — not in words. I want no 
more words.” 

Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and 
the spy returned from the dark room. “ Adieu, Mr. Barsad I ” 
said the former; “our arrangement thus made, you have 
nothing to fear from me.” 

He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. 
Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he 
had done. 

“ Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have 
ensured access to him, once.” 

Mr. Lorry’s countenance fell. 

“It is all I could do,” said Carton. “To propose too much, 
would be to put this man’s head under the axe, and, as he him¬ 
self said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. 
It was, obviously, the weakness of the position. There is no 
help for it.” 

“ But access to him,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it should go ill 
before the Tribunal, will not save him. 

“ I never said it would.” 

Mr. Lorry’s eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy 
with his darling, and the heavy disappointment of this second 
arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man now, 
overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell. 

“You are a good man and a true friend,” said Carton, in an 
altered voice. “ Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. 
I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I 
could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. 
You are free from that misfortune, however.” 

Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual 
manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone 
and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better 
side of him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him his 
hand, and Carton gently pressed it. 

“ To return to poor Darnay,” said Carton. “ Don’t tell Her 
of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable 
Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in 


300 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


case of the worst, to convey to him the means of anticipating 
the sentence.” 

Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at 
Carton to see if it were in his mind. .It seemed to be; he 
returned the look, and evidently understood it. 

“ She might think a thousand things,” Carton said, “ and 
any of them would only add to her trouble. Don’t speak of 
me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better 
not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any little helpful 
work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. You 
are going to her, I hope ? She must be very desolate to-night.” 

“ I am going now, directly.” 

“ I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to 
you and reliance on you. How does she look ? ” 

“ Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.” 

“Ah!” 

It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh — almost like a 
sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry’s eyes to Carton’s face, which was 
turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman 
could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a change 
will sweep over a hillside on a wild bright day, and he lifted 
his foot to put back one of the little flaming logs, which was 
tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat and top-boots 
then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their light sur¬ 
faces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, all 
untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire 
was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance 
from Mr. Lorry; his boot was still upon the hot embers of the 
flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of his foot. 

“ I forgot it,” he said. 

Mr. Lorry’s eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking 
note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome 
features, and having the expression of prisoners’ faces fresh in 
his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression. 

“And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?” said 
Carton, turning to him. 

“ Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in 
so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here, 
I hopecj tQ have left them in perfect safety, and then to 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


301 


bave quitted Paris. I have my Leave to pass. I was ready 
to go.” 

They were both silent. 

“Yours is along life to look back upon, sir?” said Carton 
wistfully. 

“ I am in my seventy-eighth year.” 

“ You have been useful all your life ; steadily and constantly 
occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to ? ” 

“ I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a 
man. Indeed, I may say that I was a man of business when 
a boy.” 

“See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many 
people will miss you when you leave it empty! ” 

“A solitary old bachelor,” answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his 
head. “ There is nobody to weep for me.” 

“How can you say that? Wouldn’t She weep for you? 
Wouldn’t her child?” 

“Yes, yes, thank God. I didn’t quite mean what I said.” 

“ It is a thing to thank God for; is it not ? ” 

“ Surely, surely.” 

“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, 
to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, 
the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won 
myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good 
or serviceable to be remembered by ! ’ your seventy-eight years 
would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not ? ” 

“You say truly, Mr. Carton ; I think they would be.” 

Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, aftei a 
silence of a few moments, said : — 

“ I should like to ask you: — Does your childhood seem far 
off? Do the days when you sat at your mother’s knee seem 
days of very long ago ? ” 

Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered : — 

“ Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For 
as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, 
nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the 
kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is 
touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen 
asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old !), and by many 


302 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


associations of the days when what we call the World was not 
so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me.” 

“ I understand the feeling ! ” exclaimed Carton, with a bright 
flush. “And you are the better for it?” 

“ I hope so.” 

Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help 
him on with his outer coat. “ But you,” said Mr. Lorry, re¬ 
verting to the theme, “you are young.” 

“ Yes,” said Carton. “ I am not old, but my young way 
was never the way to age. Enough of me.” 

“ And of me, I am sure,” said Mr. Lorry. “ Are you going 
out ? ” 

“ I’ll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond 
and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long 
time, don’t be uneasy ; I shall reappear in the morning. You 
go to the Court to-morrow ? ” 

“Yes, unhappily.” 

“ I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy 
will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir.” 

Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down stairs and out in the 
streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry’s destina¬ 
tion. Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance, 
and turned back to the gate again when it was shut, and touched 
it. He had heard of her going to the prison every day. “ She 
came out here,” he said, looking about him, “turned this way, 
must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her 
steps.” 

It was ten o’clock at night when he stood before the prison of 
La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little 
wood-sawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at 
his shop door. 

“Good night, citizen,” said Sydney Carton, pausing in going 
by; for the man eyed him inquisitively. 

“ Good night, citizen.” 

“How goes the Republic? ” 

“You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. 
We shall mount to a hundred soon. Sanson and his men com¬ 
plain sometimes of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so 
droll, that Sanson. Such a barber 1 ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


308 


“Do you often go to see him — ” 

“ Shave ? Always. Every day. What a barber! You 
have seen him at work ? ” 

“ Never.” 

“ Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to 
yourself, citizen; he shaved the sixty-three to-day in less than 
two pipes ! Less than two pipes. Word of honour ! ” 

As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, 
to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton was so sensible of 
a rising desire to strike the life out of him that he turned away. 

“ But you are not English,” said the wood-sawyer, “ though 
you wear English dress ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his 
shoulder. 

“You speak like a Frenchman.” 

“ I am an old student here.” 

“ Aha, a perfect Frenchman ! Good night, Englishman.” 
“Good night, citizen.” 

“ But go and see that droll dog,” the little man persisted, 
calling after him. “ And take a pipe with you ! ” 

Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the 
middle of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with 
his pencil on a scrap of paper. Then, traversing, with the 
decided step of one who remembered the way well, several dark 
and dirty streets, — much dirtier than usual, for the best public 
thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of terror, — he 
stopped at a chemist’s shop, which the owner was closing with 
his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, 
up-hill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. 

Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at 
his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. “ Whew ! ” 
the chemist whistled softly, as he read it. “ Hi! hi! hi! ” 
Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said: — 

“ For you, citizen ? ” 

“ For me.” 

“You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You 
know the consequences of mixing them ? ” 

“ Perfectly.” 

Certain small packets were made and given to him. He puft 


804 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out 
the money for them, and deliberately left the shop. “ There is 
nothing more to do,” said he, glancing upward at the moon, 
“ until to-morrow. I can’t sleep.” 

It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said 
these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more 
expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the settled man¬ 
ner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled and got 
lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end. 

Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest com¬ 
petitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father 
to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These 
solemn words, which had been read at his father’s grave, arose 
in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy 
shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above 
him, “ I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” 

In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural 
sorrow rising in him for the sixty-three who had been that day 
put to death, and for to-morrow’s victims then awaiting their 
doom in the prisons, and still of to-morrow’s and to-morrow’s, 
the chain of association that brought the words home, like a 
rusty old ship’s anchor from the deep, might have been easily 
found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and went on. 

With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the 
people were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of 
the horrors surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, 
where no prayers were said, for the popular revulsion had even 
travelled that length of self-destruction from years of priestly 
impostors, plunderers, and profligates; in the distant burial- 
places, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates, for Eternal 
Sleep; in the abounding jails; and in the streets along which 
the sixties rolled to a death which had become so common and 
material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever arose 
among the people out of all the working of the guillotine; with 
a solemn interest in the whole life and death of the city settling 
down to its short nightly pause in fury, Sydney Carton crossed 
the Seine again for the lighter streets. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


805 


Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to 
be suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, and 
put on heavy shoes, and trudged. But the theatres were all 
well filled, and the people poured cheerfully out as he passed, 
and went chatting home. At one of the theatre doors, there 
Was a little girl with a mother, looking for a way across the 
street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before 
the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss. 

“ I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord : he that 
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and 
whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” 

Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, 
the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. 
Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to him 
self as he walked ; but he heard them always. 

The night wore out, and as he stood upon the bridge listen¬ 
ing to the water as it splashed the river walls of the Island of 
Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral 
shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, 
looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then the night, with 
the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little 
while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death’s 
dominion. 

But the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, 
that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its 
long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently 
shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between 
him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it. 

The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a 
congenial friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the 
stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the 
sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot 
again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy 
that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed 
it, and carried it on to the sea. — “ Like me ! ” 

A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead 
leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. 
As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had 
broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all 


306 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


his poor blindnesses and errors ended in the words, t( I am the 
resurrection and the life.” 

Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy 
to surmise where the good old man was gone. Sydney Carton 
drank nothing but a little coffee, ate some bread, and, having 
washed and changed to refresh himself, went out to the place of 
trial. 

The court was all astir and abuzz, when the black sheep — 
whom many fell away from in dread — pressed him into an ob¬ 
scure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor 
Manette was there. She was there, sitting beside her father. 

When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon 
him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and 
pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called 
the healthy blood into his face, brightened his glance, and ani¬ 
mated his heart. If there had been any eyes to notice the 
influence of her look on Sydney Carton, it would have been 
seen to be the same influence exactly. 

Before that unjust Tribunal there was little or no order of 
procedure, ensuring to any accused person any reasonable hear¬ 
ing. There could have been no such Revolution, if all laws, 
and forms, and ceremonies, had not first been so monstrously 
abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to 
scatter them all to the winds. 

Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined 
patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the day before, 
and to-morrow and the day after. Eager and prominent among 
them, one man with a craving face, and his fingers perpetually 
hovering about his lips, whose appearance gave great satisfaction 
to the spectators. A life-thirsting, cannibal-looking, bloody- 
minded juryman, the Jacques Three of Saint Antoine. The 
whole jury, as a jury of dogs empanelled to try the deer. 

Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public 
prosecutor. No favourable leaning in that quarter to-day. 
A fell, uncompromising, murderous business meaning there. 
Every eye then sought some other eye in the crowd, and 
gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at one another, 
before bending forward with a strained attention. 

. Charles Evr^monde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


307 


Re-accused and re-taken yesterday. Indictment delivered to 
him last night. Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Repub¬ 
lic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race pro¬ 
scribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges to the 
infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evrdmonde, called 
Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law. 

To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the public prosecutor. 

The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced or 
secretly ? 

“ Openly, President.” 

“ By whom ? ” 

“ Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vender of Saint 
Antoine.” 

“ Good.” 

“ Thdrbse Defarge, his wife.” 

“ Good.” 

“ Alexandre Manette, physician.” 

A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of 
it, Doctor Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing 
where he had been seated. 

“ President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery 
and a fraud. You know the accused to be the husband of my 
daughter. My daughter and those dear to her are far dearer 
to me than my life. Who and where is the false conspirator 
who says that I denounce the husband of my child 'i ” 

“ Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the 
authority of the Tribunal would be to put yourself out of Law. 
As to what is dearer to you than life, nothing can be so dear to 
a good citizen as the Republic.” 

Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang 
his bell, and with warmth resumed. 

“ If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your 
child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her. 
Listen to what is to follow. In the mean while, be silent! ” 

Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat 
down, with his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling; 
his daughter drew closer to him. The craving man on the jury 
rubbed his hands together, and restored the usual hand to his 
mouth. 


808 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Defarge was produced, when the court was 'quiet enough to 
admit of his being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of 
the imprisonment, and of his having been a mere boy in the 
doctor’s service, and of the release, and of the state of the 
prisoner when released and delivered to him. This short ex¬ 
amination followed, for the court was quick with its work. 

“You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen ? ” 

“ I believe so.” 

Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: “You 
were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so ? You 
were a cannoneer that day there, and you were among the first 
to enter the accursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I speak 
the truth ! ” 

It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations 
of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The President 
rang his bell; but The Vengeance, warming with encouragement, 
shrieked, “ I defy that bell! ” wherein she was likewise much 
commended. 

“ Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the 
Bastille, citizen.” 

“ I knew,” said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood 
at the bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking 
steadily up at him, — “I knew that this prisoner, of whom I 
speak, had been confined in a cell known as One Hundred and 
Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew him¬ 
self by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North 
Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my 
gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine 
that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen 
who is one of the jury, directed by a jailer. I examine it, very 
closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has been 
worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is that 
written paper. I have made it my business to examine some 
specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is the writ¬ 
ing of Doctor Manette. I confide this paper, in the writing of 
Doctor Manette, to the hands of the President.” 

“ Let it be read.” 

In a dead silence and stillness — the prisoner under trial look" 
mg lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


309 


with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes 
fixed on the reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from 
the prisoner, Defarge never taking his from his feasting wife, 
and all the other eyes there intent upon the doctor, who saw 
none of them — the paper was read, as follows. 


CHAPTER X 

THE SUBSTANCE OF THE SHADOW 

“I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native 
of Beauvais and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melan¬ 
choly paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last 
month of the year 1767. I write it at stolen intervals, under 
every difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of the chim¬ 
ney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a place of con¬ 
cealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I 
and my sorrows are dust. 

“ These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which 
I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the 
chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year 
of my captivity. Hope has quite departed from my breast. I 
know from terrible warnings I have noted in myself that my 
reason will not long remain unimpaired, but I solemnly declare 
that I am at this time in the possession of my right mind, — that 
my memory is exact and circumstantial, — and that I write the 
truth as I shall answer for these my last recorded words, 
whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judg¬ 
ment-seat. 

“ One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of Decem¬ 
ber (I think the twenty-second of the month), in the year 
1757, I was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine 
for the refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour’s distance from 
my place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, 
when a carriage came along behind me driven very fast. As I 
stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might 
otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, 
and a voice called to the driver to stop. 


310 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in 
his horses, and the same voice called to me by my name. I 
answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me that 
two gentlemen had time to open the door and alight before I 
came up with it. I observed that they were both wrapped in 
cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. As they stood 
side by side near the carriage door, I also observed that they 
both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, and that 
they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far as 
X could see) face too. 

“ ‘ You are Doctor Manette ? ’ said one. 

“ * I am.’ 

“ ‘ Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,* said the other; 
‘ the young physician, originally an expert surgeon, who, within 
the last year or two, has made a rising reputation in Paris ? * 

“ ‘ Gentlemen,’ I returned, ‘ I am that Doctor Manette of 
whom you speak so graciously.’ 

“ ‘ We have been to your residence,’ said the first, ‘and not 
being so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that 
you were probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the 
hope of overtaking you. Will you please to enter the carriage ? ’ 

“ The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, 
as these words were spoken, so as to place me between them¬ 
selves and the carriage door. They were armed. I was not. 

“‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘pardon me; but I usually inquire 
who does me the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the 
nature of the case to which I am summoned.’ 

“ The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. 
‘Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As to the nature 
of the case, our confidence in your skill assures us that you will 
ascertain it for yourself better than we can describe it. Enough. 
Will you please to enter the carriage? ’ 

“ I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. 
They both entered after me — the last springing in, after putting 
up the steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on at its 
former speed. 

“ I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have 
no doubt that it is, word for word, the same. I describe every¬ 
thing exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


311 


wander from the task. Where I make the broken marks that 
follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my paper in its 
hiding-place. . . . 

“The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Bar¬ 
rier, and emerged upon the country road. At two thirds of a 
league from the Barrier — I did not estimate the distance at 
that time, but afterwards when I traversed it — it struck out 
of the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary house. 
We all three alighted, and walked, by a damp soft footpath in 
a garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the door 
of the house. It was not opened immediately, in answer to the 
ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck the 
man who opened it, with his heavy riding-glove, across the face. 

“ There was nothing in this action to attract my particular 
attention, for I had seen common people struck more commonly 
than dogs. But the other of the two, being angry likewise, 
struck the man in like manner with his arm; the look and 
bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then 
first perceived them to be twin brothers. 

“ From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we 
found locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to 
admit us, and had re-locked), I had heard cries proceeding from 
an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber straight, 
the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs, and I found 
a patient, in a high fever of the brain, lying on a bed. 

“The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; 
assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and 
ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and 
handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were all portions 
of a gentleman’s dress. On one of them, which was a fringed 
scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearing of a 
Noble, and the letter E. 

“ I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of 
the patient; for in her restless strivings she had turned over 
on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the 
scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My 
first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing; and 
in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the corner caught 
my sight. 


812 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast 
to calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her 
eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered pierc¬ 
ing shrieks, and repeated the words, ‘ My husband, my father, 
and my brother! ’ and then counted up to twelve, and said, 
‘ Hush ! * For an instant, and no more, she would pause to lis¬ 
ten, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she 
would repeat the cry, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother ! 5 
and would count up to twelve, and say, ‘ Hush !’ There was 
no variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessa¬ 
tion, but the regular moment’s pause, in the utterance of these 
sounds. 

“ ‘ How long,’ I asked, ‘ has this lasted ? ’ 

“ To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and 
the younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most 
authority. It was the elder who replied, ‘ Since about this 
hour last night.’ 

“ ‘ She has a husband, a father, and a brother? * 

“ ‘ A brother.’ 

“ ‘ I do not address her brother ? ’ 

“ He answered with great contempt, ‘ No.’ 

“ ‘ She has some recent association with the number twelve ? ’ 

“The younger brother impatiently rejoined, ‘With twelve 
o’clock.’ 

“ ‘ See, gentlemen,’ said I, still keeping my hands upon 
her breast, ‘ how useless I am, as you have brought me! If 
I had known what I was coming to see, I could have come 
provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are no medi¬ 
cines to be obtained in this lonely place.’ 

“ The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, 
‘ There is a case of medicines here; ’ and brought it from a closet, 
and put it on the table. . . . 

“ I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stop¬ 
pers to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic 
medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would not have 
administered any of those. 

“ ‘ Do you doubt them ? ’ asked the younger brother. 

“ ‘ You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,’ I replied, and 
said no more. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


313 


u I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after 
many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to 
repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its 
influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed. There was a 
timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man 
down stairs), who had retreated into a corner. The house was 
damp and decayed, indifferently furnished — evidently, recently 
occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old hangings had 
been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound of the 
shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular succes¬ 
sion, with the cry. ‘ My husband, my father, and my brother ! ’ 
the counting up to twelve, and ‘ Hush ! ’ The frenzy was so 
violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the 
arms; but I had looked to them, to see that they were not 
painful. The only spark of encouragement in the case was, 
that my hand upon the sufferer’s breast had this much soothing 
influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. 
It had no effect upon the cries; no pendulum could be more 
regular. 

“ For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I 
had sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two 
brothers looking on, before the elder said : — 

“ ‘ There is another patient.’ 

“ I was startled, and asked, ‘ Is it a pressing case ? * 

“ ‘You had better see,’ he carelessly answered; and took up 
a light. . . . 

“ The other patient lay in a back room across a second stair¬ 
case, which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a 
low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the 
ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across. Hay and 
straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, 
and a heap of apples in sand. I had to pass through that 
part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and 
unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in 
this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of 
my captivity, as I saw them all that night. 

“ On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under 
bis head, lay a handsome peasant boy — a boy of not more 
than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with hia 


314 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring 
eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his wound 
was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but I could see that 
he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. 

“ ‘ I am a doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘ Let me ex¬ 
amine it.’ 

“ ‘I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘let it be.’ 

“ It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move 
his hand away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received from 
twenty to twenty-four hours before, but no skill could have 
saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He was 
then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder brother, I 
saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was 
ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit \ 
not at all as if he were a fellow-creature. 

“ ‘ How has this been done, monsieur 1 ’ said I. 

“‘A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my 
brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother’s 
sword — like a gentleman.’ 

“ There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity 
in this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was 
inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying there, 
and that it would have been better if he had died in the usual 
obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of 
any compassionate feeling about the boy, or about his fate. 

“The boy’s eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, 
and they now slowly moved to me. 

“ ‘ Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles ; but we com¬ 
mon dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage 
us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes. 
She — have you seen her, Doctor ? ’ 

“ The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though sub¬ 
dued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she were 
lying in our presence. 

“ I said, ‘ I have seen her.’ 

“ ‘ She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful 
rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, 
many years, but we have had good girls among us. I know it, 
and have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She 


jl TALE OF TWO CITIES 


316 


was betrothed to a good young man, too : a tenant of his. We 
were all tenants of his — that man’s who stands there. The 
other is his brother, the worst of a bad race/ 

“ It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered 
bodily force to speak; but his spirit'spoke with a dreadful 
emphasis. 

“ ‘ We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all 
we common dogs are by those superior Beings — taxed by him 
without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to 
grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame 
birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep 
a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that 
degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in 
fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his 
people should not see it and take it from us — I say, we were 
so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father 
told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the "world, 
and that what we should most pray for was, that our women 
might be barren and our miserable race die out! ’ 

“ I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed burst¬ 
ing forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in 
the people somewhere; but I had never seen it break out, until I 
saw it in the dying boy. 

“ ‘ Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing 
at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she 
might tend and comfort him in our cottage—our dog-hut, as 
that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks, 
when that man’s brother saw her and admired her* and asked 
that man to lend her to him — for what are husbands among 
us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtu¬ 
ous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. 
What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his 
influence with her, to make her willing 1 9 

“The boy’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly 
turned to the lookers-on, and I saw in the two faces that all 
he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting 
one another, I can see, even in this Bastille ; the gentleman’s, 
all negligent indifference; the peasant’s, all trodden-down senti¬ 
ment, and passionate revenge. 


816 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


«‘ You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these 
Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They 
so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is among 
their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the 
frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. 
They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at night, and 
ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was not 
persuaded. No ! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to 
feed— if he could find food — he sobbed twelve times, once for 
every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.’ 

“ Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his 
determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gather¬ 
ing shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand to 
remain clenched and to cover his wound. 

“ ‘ Then, with that man’s permission and even with his aid, his 
brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must have 
told his brother — and what that is, will not be long unknown 
to you, Doctor, if it is now — his brother took her away — for 
his pleasure and diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass 
me on the road. When I took the tidings home, our father’s 
heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I 
took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the 
reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be his 
vassal. Then I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed 
in — a common dog, but sword in hand. — Where is the loft 
window? It was somewhere here? ’ 

“ The room was darkening to his sight; the world was nar¬ 
rowing around him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay 
and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there had been a 
struggle. 

“ ‘ She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near 
us till be was dead. He came in and first tossed me some 
pieces of money; then struck at me with a whip. But I, 
though a common dog, so struck at him as to make him draw. 
Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword that he 
stained with my common blood ; he drew to defend himself — 
thrust at me with all his skill for his life.’ 

“My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the 
fragments of a broken sword, lying among the hay. Tiiat 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 317 

weapon was a gentleman’s. In another place lay an old sword 
that seemed to have been a soldier’s. 

“ ‘ Now, lift me up, Doctor ; lift me up, Where is he ? ’ 

“ ‘He is not here,’ I said, supporting the boy, and thinking 
that he referred to the brother. 

“ ‘ He ! Proud as these Nobles are, he is afraid to see me. 
Where is the man who was here? Turn my face to him.’ 

“ I did so, raising the boy’s head against my knee. But, 
invested for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised 
himself completely: obliging me to rise too, or I could not have 
still supported him. 

Marquis,’ said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened 
wide and his right hand raised, ‘in the days when all these 
things are to be answered for, I summon you, and yours to the 
last of your bad race, to answer for them. I mark this cross of 
blood upon you, as a sign that I do it. In the days when all 
these things are to be answered for, I summon your brother, 
the worst of the bad race, to answer for them separately. I 
mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do it.’ 

“ Twice he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and 
with his forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an 
instant with the finger yet raised, and, as it dropped, he 
dropped with it, and I laid him down dead. . . . 

“When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I 
found her raving in precisely the same order and continuity. 
I knew that this might last for many hours, and that it would 
probably end in the silence of the grave. 

“ I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the 
side of the bed until the night was far advanced. She never 
abated the piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the 
distinctness or the order of her words. They were always ‘ My 
husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, 
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Hush ! ’ 

“ This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first 
saw her. I had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by 
her, when she began to falter. I did what little could be done 
to assist that opportunity, and by and by she sank into a 
lethargy, and lay like the dead. 

“ It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a 


318 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


long and fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the 
woman to assist me to compose her figure and the dress she had 
torn. It was then that I knew her condition to be that of one 
in whom the first expectations of being a mother have arisen \ 
and it was then that I lost the little hope I had had of her. 

“‘Is she dead?’ asked the Marquis, whom I will still 
describe as the elder brother, coming booted into the room from 
his horse. 

“ ‘ Not dead,’ said I; ‘ but like to die.’ 

“ ‘ What strength there is in these common bodies ! ’ he said, 
looking down at her with some curiosity. 

“ ‘ There is prodigious strength,’ I answered him, ‘ in sorrow 
and despair.’ 

“ He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. 
He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the 
woman away, and said, in a subdued voice : — 

“ ‘ Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these 
hinds, I recommended that your aid should be invited. Your 
reputation is high, and, as a young man with your fortune to 
make, you are probably mindful of your interest. The things 
that you see here are things to be seen and not spoken of.’ 

“ I listened to the patient’s breathing, and avoided answer¬ 
ing. 

“ ‘Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor? ’ 

“ ‘ Monsieur,’ said I, ‘ in my profession, the communications 
of patients are always received in confidence.’ I w T as guarded 
in my answer, for I was troubled in my mind by what I had 
heard and seen. 

“ Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully 
tried the pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. 
Looking round as I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers 
intent upon me. . . . 

“ I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am 
so fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground 
cell and total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative 
There is no confusion or failure in my memory; it can recall, 
and could detail, every word that was ever spoken between me 
and those brothers. 

“ She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could under* 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


319 


stand some few syllables that she said to me, by placing my eai 
close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; 
who I was, and I told her. It was in vain that I asked her for 
her family name. She faintly shook her head upon the pillow, 
and kept her secret, as the boy had done. 

“ I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I 
had told the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live 
another day. Until then, though no one was ever presented 
to her consciousness save the woman and myself, one or other 
of them had always jealously sat behind the curtain at the head 
of the bed when I was there. But when it came to that, they 
seemed careless what communication I might hold with her; as 
if—the thought passed through my mind — I were dying too. 

“ I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the 
younger brother’s (as I call him) having crossed swords with a 
peasant, and that peasant a boy. The only consideration that 
appeared really to affect the mind of either of them was the 
consideration that this was highly degrading to the family, and 
was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger brother’s eyes, 
their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, for 
knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and 
more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw 
that I was an encumbrance in the mind of the elder too. 

“ My patient died, two hours before midnight — at a time, 
by my watch, answering almost to the minute when I had first 
seen her. I was alone with her, when her forlorn young head 
drooped gently on one side, and all her earthly wrongs and sor¬ 
rows ended. 

“ The brothers were waiting in a room down stairs, impatient 
to ride away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking 
their boots with their riding-whips, and loitering up and down. 

“ ‘ At last she is dead 1 ’ said the elder, when I went in. 

“ ‘ She is dead,’ said I. 

“ ‘ I congratulate you, my brother,’ were his words as he 
turned round. 

“ He had before offered me money, which I had postponed 
taking. He now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from 
his hand, but laid it on the table. I had considered the ques¬ 
tion, and had resolved to accept nothing. 


320 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


‘“Pray excuse me,’ said I. ‘Under the circumstances, no. 

“ They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent 
mine to them, and we parted without another word on either 
side. . . . 

“I am weary, weary, weary — worn down by misery. I 
cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand. 

“ Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my 
door in a little box, with my name on the outside. From the 
first, I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I 
decided, that day, to write privately to the Minister, stating 
the nature of the two cases to which I had been summoned, 
and the place to which I had gone; in effect, stating all the 
circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what 
the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that the 
matter would never be heard of; but I wished to relieve my 
own mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from 
my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter. I had 
no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was con¬ 
scious that there might be danger for others, if others v r ere 
compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. 

“ I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my 
letter that night. I rose long before my usual time next morn¬ 
ing to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The letter 
was lying before me just completed, when I was told that a 
lady waited, who wished to see me. . . . 

“ I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have 
set myself. It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, 
and the gloom upon me is so dreadful. 

“The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not 
marked for long life. She was in great agitation. She pre¬ 
sented herself to me as the wife of the Marquis St. Evr^monde. 
I connected the title by which the boy had addressed the elder 
orother with the initial letter embroidered on the scarf, and 
had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that I had seen 
that nobleman very lately. 

“My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words 
of our conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely 
than I was, and I know not at what times I may be watched. 
She had in part suspected, and in part discovered, the main 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


321 


facts of the cruel story, of her husband’s share in it, and my 
being resorted to. She did not know that the girl was dead. 
Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to show her, in 
secret, a woman’s sympathy. Her hope had been to avert the 
wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been hateful to 
the suffering many. 

“ She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister 
living, and her greatest desire was to help that sister. I could 
tell her nothing but that there was such a sister; beyond that, 
I knew nothing. Her inducement to come to me, relying on 
my confidence, had been the hope that. I could tell her the 
name and place of abode. Whereas, to this wretched hour I 
am ignorant of both. . . . 

“ These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, 
with a warning, yesterday. I must finish my record to-day. 

“ She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her 
marriage. How could she be! The brother distrusted and 
disliked her, and his influence was all opposed to her; she stood 
in dread of him, and in dread of her husband too. When I 
handed her down to the door, there was a child, a pretty boy 
from two to three years old, in her carriage. 

“ ‘ For his sake, Doctor,’ she said, pointing to him in tears, ‘I 
would do all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will 
never prosper in his inheritance otherwise. I have a presenti¬ 
ment that if no other innocent atonement is made for this, it 
will one day be required of him. What I have left to call my 
own — it is little beyond the worth of a few jewels — I will 
make it the first charge of his life to bestow, with the compas¬ 
sion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this injured family, 
if the sister can be discovered.’ 

“ She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, ‘ It is for thine 
own dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles? ’ The’ 
child answered her bravely, ‘ Yes! ’ I kissed her hand, and 
she took him in her arms, and went away caressing him. I 
never saw her more. 

“As she had mentioned her husband’s name in the faith 
that I knew it, I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed 
my letter, and, not trusting it out of my own -hands, delivered 
it myself that day. 


322 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o’clock, 
a man in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, 
and softly followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up 
stairs. When my servant came into the room where I sat with 
my wife — 0 my wife, beloved of my heart! My fair young 
English wife! — we saw the man, who was supposed to be at 
the gate, standing silent behind him. 

“ ‘An urgent case in the Rue St. Honors,’ he said. It would 
not detain me, he had a coach in waiting. 

“ It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I 
was clear of the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over 
my mouth from behind, and my arms were pinioned. The two 
brothers crossed the road from a dark corner, and identified me 
with a single gesture. The marquis took from his pocket the 
letter I had written, showed it me, burnt it in the light of a 
lantern that was held, and extinguished the ashes with his foot. 
Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I was brought 
to my living grave. 

“ If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either 
of the brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any 
tidings of my dearest wife, — so much as to let me know by a 
word whether alive or dead, — I might have thought that He 
had not quite abandoned them. But now I believe that the 
mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that they have no 
part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the 
last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do 
this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, 
denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered 
for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth.” 

A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document 
'was done. A sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing 
articulate in it but blood. The narrative called up the most 
revengeful passions of the time, and there was not a head in the 
nation but must have dropped before it. 

Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to 
show how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the 
other captured Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had 
kept it, biding their time. Little need to show that this 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


323 


detested family name had long been anathematised by Saint 
Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register. The man 
never trod ground whose virtues and services would have sus¬ 
tained him in that place that day, against such denunciation. 

And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer 
was a well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of 
his wife. One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was 
for imitations of the questionable public virtues of antiquity, 
and for sacrifices and self-immolations on the people’s altar. 
Therefore, when the President said (else had his own head 
quivered on his shoulders), that the good physician of the 
Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by rooting 
out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless 
feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow and 
her child an orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic fer¬ 
vour, not a touch of human sympathy. 

“ Much influence around him, has that doctor ? ” murmured 
Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. “ Save him now, 
my Doctor, save him ! ” 

At every juryman’s vote there was a roar. Another and 
another. Roar and roar. 

Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, 
an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People % 
Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty 
hours! 


CHAPTER XI 

DUSK 

The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die 
fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. 
But she uttered no sound ; and so strong was the voice within 
her, representing that it was she of all the world who must 
uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly 
raised her, even from that shock. 

The judges having to take part in a public demonstration out 
of doors, the tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and move- 


324 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


ment of the court’s emptying itself by many passages had not 
ceased, when Lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her 
husband, with nothing in her face but love and consolation. 

“ If I might touch him ! If I might embrace him once! 
Oh, good citizens, if you would have so much compassion for 
us! ” 

There was but a jailer left, along with two of the four men 
who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had 
all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to 
the rest, “ Let her embrace him, then; it is but a moment.” 
It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats 
in the hall to a raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock, 
could fold her in his arms. 

“ Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on 
my love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest I ” 

They were her husband’s words, as he held her to his bosom. 

“I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above; 
don’t suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child.” 

“ I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say fare¬ 
well to her by you.” 

“ My husband. No! A moment! ” He was tearing him¬ 
self apart from her. “We shall not be separated long. I feel 
that this will break my heart by and by; but I will do my duty 
while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for 
her, as He did for me.” 

Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his 
knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and 
seized him, crying : — 

“ No, no ! What have you done, what have you done, that 
you should kneel to us ! We know now, what a struggle you 
made of old. We know now, what you underwent when you 
suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, 
the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her 
dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love 
and duty. Heaven be with you ! ” 

Her father’s only answer was to draw his hands through his 
white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. 

“ It could not be otherwise,” said the prisoner. “ All things 
have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


325 


always vain endeavour to discharge my poor mother’s trust, that 
first brought my fatal presence near you. Good could never 
come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy 
a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven bless 
you! ” 

As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood 
looking after him with her hands touching one another in the 
attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in 
which there was even a comforting smile. As he went out at 
the prisoners’ door, she turned, laid her head lovingly on her 
father’s breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet. 

Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had 
never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her 
father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled as it 
raised her, and supported her head. Yet there was an air about 
him that was not all of pity — that had a flush of pride in it. 

“ Shall I take her to a coach ? I shall never feel her weight.” 

He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly 
down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, 
and he took his seat beside the driver. 

When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in 
the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on which 
of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted 
her again, and carried her up the staircase to their rooms. 
There, he laid her down on a couch, where her child and Miss 
Pross wept over her. 

“Don’t recall her to herself,” he said softly, to the latter, 
“ she is better so; don’t revive her to consciousness, while she 
only faints.” 

“ Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton! ” cried little Lucie, 
springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, in 
a burst of grief. “Now that you have come, I think you will 
do something to help mamma, something to save papa ! Oh, 
look at her, dear Carton ! Can you, of all the people who love 
her, bear to see her so ” 

He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against 
his face. He put her gently from him, and looked at her 
unconscious mother. 

“Before I go,” he said, and paused — “I may kiss her?” 


326 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and 
touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The 
child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told 
her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she 
heard him say, “ A life you love.” 

When he had gone out into the next room, he turned sud¬ 
denly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and 
said to the latter : — 

“You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let 
it, at least, be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, 
are very friendly to you, and very recognisant of your services; 
are they not ? ” 

“ Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I 
had the strongest assurances that I should save him; and I 
did.” He returned the answer in great trouble, and very 
slowly. 

“ Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow 
afternoon are few and short, but try.” 

“ I intend to try. I will not rest a moment.” 

“ That’s well. I have known such energy as yours do great 
things before now — though never,” he added, with a smile and 
a sigh together, “ such great things as this. But try ! Of 
little worth as h'fe is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. 
It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.” 

“I will go,” said Doctor Manette, “to the prosecutor and 
the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is better 
not to name. I will write too, and — But stay ! There is a 
celebration in the streets, and no one will be accessible until 
dark.” 

“That’s true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and 
not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should 
like to know how you speed; though, mind ! I expect nothing! 
When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, Doctor 
Manette ? ” 

“ Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or 
two from this.” 

“ It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or 
two. If I go to Mr. Lorry’s at nine, shall I hear what you 
have done, either from our friend or from yourself? ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


827 


“ Yes.” 

M May you prosper ! ” 

Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching 
him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to 
turn. 

“ I have no hope,” said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful 
whisper. 

“ Nor have I.” 

“ If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed 
to spare him — which is a large supposition ; for what is his life, 
or any man’s, to them ! — I doubt if they durst spare him 
after the demonstration in the court.” 

“ And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound.” 

Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his 
face upon it. 

“Don’t despond,” said Carton, very gently; “don’t grieve. 
I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it 
might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might 
think 1 his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,’ and that 
might trouble her.” 

“ Yes, yes, yes,” returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, “you 
are right. But he will perish ; there is no real hope.” 

“Yes. He will perish; there is no real hope,” echoed 
Carton. And walked with a settled step down stairs. 


CHAPTER XII 

DARKNESS 

Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided 
where to go. “ At Tellson’s Banking-house at nine,” he said, 
with a musing face. “ Shall I do well, in the mean time, to 
show myself? I think so. It is best that these people should 
know there is such a man as I here; it is a sound precaution, 
and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care ! Let 
me think it out! ” 

Checking his steps, which had begun to tend towards an 
object, he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, 


328 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


and traced the thought in his mind to its possible consequences. 
His first impression was confirmed. “It is best,” he said, 
finally resolved, “ that these people should know there is such 
a man as I here.” And he turned his face towards Saint 
Antoine. 

Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a 
wine-shop in the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult 
for one who knew the city well to find his house without ask¬ 
ing any question. Having ascertained its situation, Carton 
came out of those closer streets again, and dined at a place of 
refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the first 
time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night 
he had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night 
he had dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry’s hearth 
like a man who had done with it. 

It was as late as seven o’clock when he awoke refreshed, and 
went out into the streets again. As he passed along towards 
Saint Antoine, he stopped at a shop window where there was a 
mirror, and slightly altered the disordered arrangement of his 
loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and his wild hair. This done, 
he went on direct to Defarge’s, and went in. 

There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques 
Three, of the restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, 
whom he had seen upon the jury, stood drinking at the little 
counter, in conversation with the Defarges, man and wife. The 
Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like a regular member 
of the establishment. 

As Carton walked in, took his seat, and asked (in very indif¬ 
ferent French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge 
cast a careless glance at him, and then a keener, and then a 
keener, and then advanced to him herself, and asked him what 
it was he had ordered. 

He repeated what he had already said. 

“ English ? ” asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her 
dark eyebrows. 

After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French 
word were slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his 
former strong foreign accent. “Yes, madame, yes. I am 
English ! ” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


329 


Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, 
as he took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puz¬ 
zling out its meaning, he heard her say, “ I swear to you, like 
Evrdmonde! ” 

Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good Evening. 

“ How?” 

“ Good evening.” 

“ Oh ! Good evening, citizen,” filling his glass. “ Ah ! and 
good wine. I drink to the Republic.” 

Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “ Certainly, a 
little like.” Madame sternly retorted, “ I tell you a good deal 
like.” Jacques Three pacifically remarked, “ He is so much in 
your mind, see you, madame.” The amiable Vengeance added, 
with a laugh, “ Yes, my faith ! And you are looking forward 
with so much pleasure to seeing him once more to-morrow ! ” 

Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow 
forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were 
all leaning their arms on the counter close together, speaking 
low. After a silence of a few moments, during which they all 
looked towards him without disturbing his outward attention 
from the Jacobin editor, they resumed their conversation. 

“It is true what madame says,” observed Jacques Three. 
“ Why stop? There is great force in that. Why stop?” 

“ Well, well,” reasoned Defarge, “ but one must stop some- 
where. After all, the question is still where ? ” 

“ At extermination,” said madame. 

“ Magnificent! ” croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, 
also, highly approved. 

“ Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,” said Defarge, 
rather troubled; “in general, I say nothing against it. But 
this doctor has suffered much ; you have seen him to-day; you 
have observed his face when the paper was read.” 

“ I have observed his face ! ” repeated madame, contempt¬ 
uously and angrily. “ Yes, I have observed his face. I have 
observed his face to be not the face of a true friend of the 
Republic. Let him take care of his face! ” 

“And you have observed, my wife,” said Defarge in a 
deprecatory manner, “ the anguish of his daughter, which must 
be a dreadful anguish to him ! ” 


830 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ I have observed his daughter,” repeated madame ; “Yes, 1 
have observed his daughter more times than one. I have ob¬ 
served her to-day, and I have observed her other days. I have 
observed her in the court, and I have observed her in the street 
by the prison. Let me but lift my finger —! ” She seemed to 
raise it (the listener’s eyes were always on his paper), and to 
let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as if the axe had 
dropped. 

“ The citizeness is superb ! ” croaked the Juryman. 

“ She is an Angel! ” said The Vengeance, and embraced her. 

“ As to thee,” pursued madame implacably, addressing her 
husband, “if it depended on thee — which, happily, it does not 
— thou wouldst rescue this man even now.” 

“ No !” protested Defarge. “Not if to lift this glass would 
do it! But I would leave the matter there. I say, stop 
there.” 

“ See you then, Jacques,” said Madame Defarge wrathfully; 
“ and see you, too, my little Vengeance ; see you both! 
Listen ! For other crimes as tyrants and oppressors, I have 
this race a long time on my register, doomed to destruction and 
extermination. Ask my husband, is that so.” 

“ It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked. 

“ In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, 
he finds this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the 
middle of the night when this place is clear and shut, we read 
it, here on this spot, by the light of this lamp. Ask him, is 
that so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge. 

“ That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and 
the lamp is burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those 
shutters and between those iron bars, that I have now a secret 
to communicate. Ask him, is that so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge again. 

“I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom 
with these two hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, ‘ De¬ 
farge, I was brought up among the fishermen of the seashore, 
and that peasant-family so injured by the two Evr^monde 
brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my family. Defarge, 
that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


331 


my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn 
child was their child, that brother was my brother, that father 
was my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to 
answer for those things descends to me! ’ Ask him, is that 
so.” 

“It is so,” assented Defarge once more. 

“ Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame ; 
“ but don’t tell me.” 

Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly 
nature of her wrath — the listener could feel how white she was, 
without seeing her — and both highly commended it. Defarge, 
a weak minority, interposed a few words for the memory of the 
compassionate wife of the Marquis; but only elicited from his 
own wife a repetition of her last reply, “Tell the Wind and 
the Fire where to stop; not me ! ” 

Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The 
English customer paid for what he had had, perplexedly counteo 
his change, and asked, as a stranger, to be directed towards the 
National Palace. Madame Defarge took him to the door, and 
put her arm on his in pointing out the road. The English 
customer was not without his reflections then that it might be a 
good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp 
and deep. 

But he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the 
shadow of the prison wall. At the appointed hour he emerged 
from it to present himself in Mr. Lorry’s room again, where he 
found the old gentleman walking to and fro in restless anxiety. 
He said he had been with Lucie until just now, and had only 
left her for a few minutes to come and keep his appointment. 
Her father had not been seen since he quitted the Banking- 
house towards four o’clock. She had some faint hopes that his 
mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He 
had been more than five hours gone : where could he be ? 

Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but Doctor Manette not return¬ 
ing, and he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was 
arranged that he should go back to her, and come to the Bank¬ 
ing-house again at midnight. In the mean while, Carton would 
wait alone by the fire for the doctor. 

He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but 


832 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Doctor Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and 
found no tidings of him, and brought none. Where could 
he be? 

They were discussing this question, and were almost building 
up some weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when 
they heard him on the stairs. The instant he entered the room 
it was plain that all was lost. 

Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had 
been all that time traversing the streets, was never known. As 
he stood staring at them, they asked him no question, for his 
face told them everything. 

“ I cannot find it,” said he, “ and I must have it. Where 
is it?” 

His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a help¬ 
less look straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop 
on the floor. 

“ Where is my bench ? I have been looking everywhere for 
my bench, and I can’t find it. What have they done with my 
work? Time presses : I must finish those shoes.” 

They looked at one another, and their hearts died within 
them. 

“ Come, come! ” said he, in a whimpering, miserable way; 
“ let me get to work. Give me my work.” 

Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon 
the ground, like a distracted child. 

“Don’t torture a poor, forlorn wretch,” he implored them, 
with a dreadful cry; “ but give me my work ! What is to 
become of us, if those shoes are not done to-night ? ” 

Lost, utterly lost! 

It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to 
restore him, that — as if by agreement — they each put a hand 
upon his shoulder, and soothed him to sit down before the fire, 
with a promise that he should have his work presently. He 
sank into the chair, and brooded over the embers, and shed 
tears. As if all that had happened since the garret time were 
a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into 
the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping. 

Affected and impressed with terror as they both were by this 
spectacle of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


833 


His lonely daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, 
appealed to them both too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, 
they looked at one another with one meaning in their faces. 
Carton was the first to speak. 

“The last chance is gone : it was not much. Yes; he had 
better be taken to her. But, before you go, will you, for a 
moment, steadily attend to me ? Don’t ask me why I make the 
stipulations I am going to make, and exact the promise I am 
going to exact; I have a reason — a good one.” 

“I do not doubt it,” answered Mr. Lorry. “Say on.” 

The figure in the chair between them was all the time 
monotonously rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They 
spoke in such a tone as they would have used if they had been 
watching by a sick-bed in the night. 

Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost en¬ 
tangling his feet. As he did so, a small case, in which the 
doctor was accustomed to carry the list of his day’s duties, fell 
lightly on the floor. Carton took it up, and there was a folded 
paper in it. “ We should look at this ? ” he said. Mr. Lorry 
nodded his consent He opened it, and exclaimed, “ Thank 
God ! ” 

“ What is it? ” asked Mr. Lorry eagerly. 

“ A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,” he 
put his hand in his coat, and took another paper from it, “ that 
is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this city. Look 
at it. You see — Sydney Carton, an Englishman 1 ” 

Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest 
face. 

“ Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to-morrow, 
you remember, and I had better not take it into the prison.” 

“ Why not ? ” 

“ I don’t know : I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper 
that Doctor Manette has carried about him. It is a similar 
certificate, enabling him and his daughter and her child, at any 
time, to pass the Barrier and the frontier ? You see 1 ” 

“Yes!” 

“ Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution 
against evil, yesterday. When is it dated ? But no matter ; 
don’t stay to look; put it up carefully with mine and your own, 


334 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


Now, observe ! I never doubted until within this hour or two, 
that he had, or could have, such a paper. It is good, until 
recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have reason to 
think, wfill be.” 

“ They are not in danger 1 ” 

“ They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunci¬ 
ation by Madame Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I 
have overheard words of that woman’s, to-night, which have 
presented their danger to me in strong colours. I have lost no 
time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He confirms me. 
He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the prison wall, is 
under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by 
Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her ” — he never men¬ 
tioned Lucie’s name — “ making signs and signals to prisoners. 
It is easy to foresee that the pretence will be the common one, 
a prison plot, and that it will involve her life — and perhaps 
her child’s — and perhaps her father’s — for both have been 
seen with her at that place. Don’t look so horrified. You will 
save them all.” 

“ Heaven grant I may, Carton ! But how ? ” 

“ I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it 
could depend on no better man. This new denunciation will 
certainly not take place until after to-morrow; probably not 
until two or three days afterwards; more probably a week 
afterwards. You know it is a capital crime to mourn for, or 
sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her 
father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this 
woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) 
would wait to add that strength to her case, and make herself 
doubly sure. You follow me ? ” 

“ So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you 
say, that for the moment I lose sight,” touching the back of 
the doctor’s chair, “ even of this distress.” 

“ You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to 
the sea-coast as quickly as the journey can be made. Your 
preparations have been completed for some days, to return to 
England. Early to-morrow, have your horses ready, so that 
they may be in starting trim at two o’clock in the afternoou.” 

“ It shall be done ! ” 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 336 

His. manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry 
caught the flame, and was as quick as youth. 

“You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon 
no better man ? Tell her, to-night, what you know of her 
danger as involving her child and her father. Dwell upon that, 
for she would lay her own fair head beside her husband’s, 
cheerfully.” He faltered for an instant ; then went on as 
before. “ For the sake of her child and her father, press upon 
her the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that 
hour. Tell her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. 
Tell her that more depends upon it than she dare believe, or 
hope. You think that her father, even in this sad state, will 
submit himself to her ; do you not ? ” 

“I am sure of it.” 

“ I thought so. Quietly and steadily, have all these arrange¬ 
ments made in the courtyard here, even to the taking of your 
own seat in the carriage. The moment I come to you, take me 
in, and drive away.” 

“ I understand that I wait for you, under all circumstances? ” 

“ You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you 
know, and will reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have 
my place occupied, and then for England ! ” 

“ Why, then,” said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm 
and steady hand, “ it does not all depend on one old man, but 
I shall have a young and ardent man at my side.” 

“ By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly, 
that nothing will influence you to alter the course on which we 
now stand pledged to one another.” 

“Nothing, Carton.” 

“ Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, oi 
delay in it — for any reason — and no life can possibly be saved, 
and many lives must inevitably be sacrificed.” 

“ I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully.” 

“ And I hope to do mine. Now, good-bye ! ” 

Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and 
though he even put the old man’s hand to his lips, he did not 
part from him then. He helped him so far to arouse the rock¬ 
ing figure before the dying embers, as to get a cloak and hat 
put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find where the bench and 


836 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


work were hidden that it still moaningly besought to have. He 
walked on the other side of it and protected it to the courtyard 
of the house where the afflicted heart — so happy in the mem¬ 
orable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to it 
— outwatched the awful night. He entered the courtyard and 
remained there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light 
in the window of her room. Before he went away, he breathed 
a blessing towards it, and a Farewell. 


CHAPTER XIII 

FIFTY-TWO 

In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the 
day awaited their fate. They were in number as the weeks of 
the year. Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the life-tide 
of the city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before their cells 
were quit of them, new occupants were appointed ; before their 
blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that was 
to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set apart. 

Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-gen¬ 
eral of seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the 
seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not 
save her. Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and 
neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the 
frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intoler¬ 
able oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally with¬ 
out distinction. 

Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with 
no flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. 
In every line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his 
condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no personal 
influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually sen¬ 
tenced by the millions, and that units could avail him nothing. 

Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved 
wife fresh before him, to compose his mind to what it must 
bear. His hold on life was strong, and it was very, very hard 
to loosen; by gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little here, 



In the Black Prison of the Concierg&rie. 


























































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


837 


it clenched the tighter there ; and when he brought his strength 
to bear on that hand and it yielded, this was closed again. 
There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, a turbulent and 
heated working of his heart, that contended against resignation. 
If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and child, 
who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a 
selfish thing. 

But all this was at first. Before long, the consideration 
that there was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that 
numbers went the same road wrongfully, and trod it firmly, 
every day, sprang up to stimulate him. Next followed the 
thought that much of the future peace of mind enjoyable by 
the dear ones depended on his quiet fortitude. So by degrees 
he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his thoughts 
much higher, and draw comfort down. 

Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, 
he had travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to pur¬ 
chase the means of writing, and a light, he sat down to write 
until such time as the prison lamps should be extinguished. 

He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had 
known nothing of her father’s imprisonment until he had heard 
of it from herself, and that he had been as ignorant as she of 
his father’s and uncle’s responsibility for that misery, until the 
paper had been read. He had already explained to her that his 
concealment from herself of the name he had relinquished was 
the one condition — fully intelligible now — that her father 
had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he had 
still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated 
her, for her father’s sake, never to seek to know whether her 
father had become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or 
had had it recalled to him (for the moment, or for good), by the 
story of the Tower, on that old Sunday under the dear plane- 
tree in the garden. If he had preserved any definite remem¬ 
brance of it, there could be no doubt that he had supposed it 
destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no mention of 
it among the relics of the prisoners which the populace had dis¬ 
covered there, and which had been described to all the world. 
He besought her — though he added that he knew it was need¬ 
less — to console her father, by impressing him through everj 


338 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


tender means she could think of, with the truth that he had 
done nothing for which he could justly reproach himself, but 
had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint sakes. Next 
to her preservation of his own last grateful love and blessing, 
and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their 
dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in heaven, to 
comfort her father. 

To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but he 
told her father that he expressly confided his wife and child to 
his care. And he told him this, very strongly, with the hope 
of rousing him from any despondency or dangerous retrospect 
towards which he foresaw he might be tending. 

To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his 
worldly affairs. That done, with many added sentences of 
grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was done. He 
never thought of Carton. ' His mind was so full of the others, 
that he never once thought of him. 

He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put 
out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had 
done with this world. 

But it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in 
shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho 
(though it had nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably 
released and light of heart, he was with Lucie again, and she 
told him it was all a dream, and he had never gone away. A 
pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even suffered, and had 
come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there was no dif¬ 
ference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in 
the sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had 
happened, until it flashed upon his mind, “ This is the day of 
my death ! ” 

Thus had he come through the hours, to the day when the 
fifty-two heads were to fall. And now, while he was composed, 
and hoped that he could meet the end with quiet heroism, a 
new action began in his waking thoughts, which was very diffi¬ 
cult to master. 

He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his 
life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps it 
had, where he would be stood, how he would be touched. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


339 


whether the touching hands would be dyed rad, which way his 
face would be turned, whether he would be the first, or might 
be the last: these and many similar questions, in no wise 
directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, 
countless times. Neither were they connected with fear: he 
was conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange 
besetting desire to know what to do when the time came; a 
desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments to 
which it referred; a wondering that was more like the wonder¬ 
ing of some other spirit within his, than his own. 

The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks 
struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for 
ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on 
to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric action 
of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better 
of it. He walked up and down, softly repeating their names 
to himself. The worst of the strife was over. He could walk 
up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for himself 
and for them. 

Twelve gone for ever. 

He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he 
knew he would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as 
the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through the streets. 
Therefore, he resolved to keep Two before his mind, as the 
hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he 
might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. 

Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his 
breast, a very different man from the prisoner who had walked 
to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck away from him, 
without surprise. The hour had measured like most other 
hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered self- 
possession, he thought, “There is but another now,” and 
turned to walk again. 

Footsteps in the stone passage, outside the door. He 
stopped. 

The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door 
was opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in Eng¬ 
lish : “He has never seen me here: I have kept out of his 
way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose no time ! ” 


340 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood 
before him, face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light 
of a smile on his features and a cautionary finger on his lip, 
Sydney Carton. 

There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, 
that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be 
an apparition of his own imagining. But he spoke, and it was 
his voice; he took the prisoner’s hand, and it was his real grasp. 

“Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see 
me ? ” he said. 

“ I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it 
now. You are not ” — the apprehension came suddenly into 
his mind — “a prisoner?” 

“No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of 
the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I 
come from her — your wife, dear Darnay.” 

The prisoner wrung his hand. 

“ I bring you a request from her.” 

“What is it?” 

“ A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed 
to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, 
that you well remember.” 

The prisoner turned his face partly aside. 

“You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it 
means; I have no time to tell you. You must comply with 
it — take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine.” 

There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the 
prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the 
speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood over him 
barefoot. 

“ Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; 
put your will to them. Quick ! ” 

“ Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can 
be done. You will only die with me. It is madness.” 

“ It would be madness if I asked you to escape ; but do I ? 
When I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness 
and remain here. Change that cravat for this of mine, that 
coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this ribbon 
from your hair, and shake out your hair like this of mine I ” 

I; 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


341 


With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will 
and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these 
changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young child in his 
hands. 

“ Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accom¬ 
plished, it never can be done, it has been attempted, and has 
always failed. I implore you not to add your death to the 
bitterness of mine.” 

“ Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door ? When I 
ask that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. 
Is your hand steady enough to write ? ” 

“It was, when you came in.” 

“ Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, 
friend, quick! ” 

Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down 
at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood 
close beside him. 

“ Write exactly as I speak.” 

“ To whom do I address it ? ” 

“ To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast. 

“ Do I date it ? ” 

“No.” 

The prisoner looked up at each question. Carton, standing 
over him with his hand in his breast, looked down. 

“ ‘ If you remember,’ ” said Carton, dictating, “ ‘ the words 
that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend 
this when you see it. You do remember them, I know. It is 
not in your nature to forget them.’ ” 

He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner 
chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand 
stopped, closing upon something. 

“ Have you written ‘ forget them ? ’ ” Carton asked. 

“I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?” 

“ No ; lam not armed.” 

“ What is it in your hand ? ” 

“You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few 
words more.” He dictated again. ‘“I am thankful that the 
time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so, is no 
subject for regret or grief.’ ” As he said these words with his 


342 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down 
close to the writer’s face. 

The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and 
he looked about him vacantly. 

“ What vapour is that 1 ” he asked. 

“ Vapour ?” 

“ Something that crossed me ? ” 

“I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here 
Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry! ” 

As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, 
the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked 
at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of 
breathing, Carton — his hand again in his breast — looked 
steadily at him. 

“ Hurry, hurry ! ” 

The prisoner bent over the paper, once more. 

“ ‘ If it had been otherwise; 3 ” Carton’s hand w r as again watch¬ 
fully and softly stealing down; “ ‘ I never should have used the 
longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise; * ” the hand was at 
the prisoner’s face; “ £ I should but have had so much the more 
to answer for. If it had been otherwise — ’Carton looked at 
the pen, and saw that it was trailing off into unintelligible signs. 

Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The pris¬ 
oner sprang up, with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand w r as 
close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him 
round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled with 
the man who had come to lay down his life for him ; but within 
a minute or so, he w r as stretched insensible on the ground. 

Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart 
was, Carton dressed himself in the clothe the prisoner had laid 
aside, combed # back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the 
prisoner had worn. Then, he softly called “ Enter there 1 
Come in! ” and the spy presented himself. 

“ You see ? ” said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one 
knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: 
“ Is your hazard very great 1 ” 

“ Mr. Carton,” the spy answered, with a timid snap of his 
fingers, “ my hazard is not that , in the thick of business here 
hi you are true to the whole of your bargain.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


343 


** Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.” 

“You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be 
right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have no 
fear.” 

“ Have no fear ! I shall soon be out of the way of harming 
you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please God ! Now, 
get assistance and take me to the coach.” 

“ You 1 ” said the spy nervously. 

“ Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at 
the gate by which you brought me in ? ” 

“ Of course.” 

“ I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am 
fainter now you take me out. The parting interview has over¬ 
powered me. Such a thing has happened here, often, and too 
often. Your life is in your own hands. Quick ! Call assist¬ 
ance ! ” 

“You swear not to betray me ? ” said the trembling spy, as 
he paused for a last moment. 

“ Man, man ! ” returned Carton, stamping his foot; “ have I 
sworn by no solemn vow already, to go through with this, that 
you waste the precious moments now ? Take him yourself to 
the courtyard you know of, place him yourself in the carriage, 
show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him yourself to give him 
no restorative but air, and to remember my words of last night 
and his promise of last night, and drive away ! ” 

The spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, 
resting his forehead on his hands. The spy returned immedi¬ 
ately, with two men. 

“ How, then,” said one of them, contemplating the fallen 
figure. “ So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize 
in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine?” 

“ A good patriot,” said the other, “ could hardly have been 
more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.” 

They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they 
had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. 

“ The time is short, Evrdmonde,” said the spy, in a warning 
voice. 

“ I know it well,” answered Carton. “ Be careful of my 
friend, I entreat you, and leave me.” 


344 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and 
come away! ” 

The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his 
powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound 
that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys 
turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant passages: 
no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual. Breath¬ 
ing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table, and 
listened again until the clocks struck Two. 

Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their mean¬ 
ing, then began to be audible. Several doors were opened in 
succession, and finally his own. A jailer, with a list in his 
hand, looked in, merely saying, “ Follow me, Evrdmonde ! ” and 
he followed into a large dark room, at a distance. It was a 
dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and what 
with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern the others 
who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were 
standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless 
motion; but these were few. The great majority were silent 
and still, looking fixedly at the ground. 

As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the 
fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing 
to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him 
with a great dread of discovery; but the man went on. A very 
few moments after that, a young woman, with a slight girlish 
form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour, 
and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where 
he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. 

“ Citizen EvnSmonde,” she said, touching him with hercold hand, 
“lama poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.” 

He murmured for answer: “ True. I forget what you were 
accused of ? ” 

“ Plots. Though the just Heaven knows I am innocent of 
any. Is it likely 1 Who would think of plotting with a poor 
little weak creature like me?” 

The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him 
that tears started from his eyes. 

“ I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrdmonde, but I have done 
nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic, which is 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


345 


to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I 
do not know how that can be, Citizen Evrdmonde. Such a 
poor weak little creature! ” 

As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and 
soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. 

“ I heard you were released, Citizen Evrdmonde. I hoped 
it was true?” 

“ It was. But I was again taken and condemned.” 

“ If I may ride with you, Citizen Evr&nonde, will you let 
me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and 
weak, and it will give me more courage.” 

As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden 
doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work- 
worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips. 

“ Are you dying for him ? ” she whispered. 

“ And his wife and child. Hush ! Yes.” 

“ Oh you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger ?" 

“ Hush ! Yes, my poor sister ; to the last.” 

The same shadows that are falling on the prison are falling, 
in the same hour of that early afternoon, on the Barrier with 
the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up 
to be examined. 

“ Who goes here ? Whom have we within ? Papers ! ” 

The papers are handed out and read. 

“ Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he ? ” 

This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wander¬ 
ing old man pointed out. 

“Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? 
The Revolution-fever will have been too much for him ? ” 

Greatly too much for him. 

“Hah! Many, suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. 
French. Which is she?” 

This is she. 

“Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evrdmondej 
is it not ? ” 

It is. 

“ Hah! Evr&nonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, 
her child. English. This is she ? ” 


846 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


She and no other. 

“Kiss me, child of Evrdmonde. Now, thou hast kissed a 
good republican; something new in thy family, remember it! 
Sydney Carton. Advocate. English. Which is he?” 

He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is 
pointed out. 

“ Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon ? ” 

It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is repre¬ 
sented that he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly 
from a friend who is under the displeasure of the Republic. 

“ Is that all ? It is not a great deal, that! Many are 
under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at 
the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which 
is he?” 

“ I am he. Necessarily, being the last.” 

It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous 
questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands 
with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of 
officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and leisurely 
mount the box, to look at what little luggage it carries on the 
roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to the 
coach doors and greedily stare in ; a little child, carried by its 
mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the 
wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine. 

“ Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.” 

“ One can depart, citizen ?” 

“ One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good 
journey! ” 

“ I salute you, citizens. — And the first danger passed ! ” 

These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his 
hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there 
is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible 
traveller. 

“ Are we not going too slowly ? Can they not be induced to 
go faster?” asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. 

“It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge 
them too much; it would rouse suspicion.” 

“ Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued ! ” 

“ The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.* 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


347 


Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous 
buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, ave¬ 
nues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, 
the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes we strike into 
the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake 
us; sometimes we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony 
of our impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and 
hurry we are for getting out and running — hiding — doing 
anything but stopping. 

Out of the open countiy, in again among ruinous buildings, 
solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in 
twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men 
deceived us, and taken us back by another road ? Is not this 
the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. 
Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush ! the 
posting-house. 

Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach 
stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likeli¬ 
hood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses 
come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the new 
postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; 
leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong 
additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our 
overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip 
the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. 

At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old 
are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and 
down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the 
postilions exchange speech with animated gesticulation, and the 
horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pur¬ 
sued ! 

“ Ho ! Within the carriage there. Speak, then ! ” 

“What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. 

“ How many did they say ? ” 

“ I do not understand you.” 

“ — At the last post. How many to the guillotine to¬ 
day?” 

“ Fifty-two.” 

“ I said so ! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here 


348 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


would have it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. 
The guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi forward! 
Whoop !” 

The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning 
to revive, and to speak intelligibly \ he thinks they are still 
together; he asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. 
Oh, pity us, kind Heaven, and help us ! Look out, look out, 
and see if we are pursued. 

The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after 
us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night 
is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else. 


CHAPTER XIY 

THE KNITTING DONE 

In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-two awaited 
their fate, Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with 
The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. 
Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these 
ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of 
roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the confer¬ 
ence, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite, who 
was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until 
invited. 

“But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a 
good republican % Eh 1 ” 

“ There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in 
her shrill notes, “ in France.” 

“ Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her 
hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear me 
speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good republican and 
a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and pos¬ 
sesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and 
he is so weak as to relent towards this doctor.” 

“ It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shak¬ 
ing his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth ; “ it is 
not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to regret.” 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


349 


“ See you,” said madame, “ I care nothing for this doctor, L 
He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; 
it is all one to me. But the Evr&nonde people are to be exter¬ 
minated, and the wife and child must follow the husband and 
father.” 

“ She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “ 1 
have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked 
charming when Sanson held them up.” Ogre that he was, he 
spoke like an epicure. 

Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. 

“ The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative 
enjoyment of his words, “ has golden hair and blue eyes. And 
we seldom have a child there. It is a pretty sight!” 

“In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short 
abstraction, “ I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not 
only do I feel, since last night, that I dare not confide to him 
the details of my projects; but also I feel that if I delay, there 
is danger of his giving warning, and then they might escape.” 

“That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one 
must escape. We have not half enough as it is. We ought to 
have sixscore a day.” 

“ In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “ my husband has 
not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and I 
have not his reason for regarding this doctor with any sensibility. 
I must act for myself, therefore. Come hither, little citizen.” 

The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself 
in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his 
red cap. 

“ Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge 
sternly, “ that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear 
witness to them this very day 1 ” ’ 

“Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in all 
weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes with 
the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I 
have seen with my eyes.” 

He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in in< 
cidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals 
that he had never seen. 

“ Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “ Transparently 1 ” 


850 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ There is no doubt of the jury ? ” inquired Madame Defarge, 
letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. 

“ Rely upon the patriotic jury, dear citizeness. I answer for 
my fellow-jurymen.” 

“ Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. 
“Yet once more! Can I spare this doctor to my husband 1 
I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him ? ” 

“ He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in 
a low voice. “We really have not heads enough; it would ba 
a pity, I think.” 

“He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued 
Madame Defarge; “I cannot speak of one without the other; 
and I must not be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this 
little citizen here. For I am not a bad witness.” 

The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in 
their fervent protestations that she was the most admirable and 
marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, 
declared her to be a celestial witness. 

“ He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “ No; 
I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you 
are going to see the batch of to-day executed. — You ? ” 

The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hur¬ 
riedly replied in the affirmative; seizing the occasion to add 
that he was the most ardent of republicans, and that he would 
be in effect the most desolate of republicans, if anything prevented 
him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon pipe in 
the contemplation of the droll national barber. He was so very 
demonstrative herein, that he might have been suspected (per¬ 
haps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him 
out of Madame Defarge’s head) of having his small individual 
fears for his own personal safety, every hour in the day. 

“I,” said madame, “am equally engaged at the same place. 
After it is over — say at eight to-night — come you to me, in 
Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people 
at my Section.” 

The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend 
the citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embar¬ 
rassed, evaded her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated 
among his wood, and hid his confusion over the handle of his saw. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


351 


Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance 
a little nearer to the door, and there expounded her further 
views to them thus : — 

“ She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. 
She will be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of 
mind to impeach the justice of the Eepublic. She will be full 
of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her.” 

“ What an admirable woman ! what an adorable woman! ” 
exclaimed Jacques Three rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!” 
cried The Vengeance; and embraced her. 

“ Take you my knitting,” said Madame Defarge, placing it 
in her lieutenant’s hands, “and have it ready for me in my 
usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, 
for there will probably be a greater concourse than usual, to¬ 
day.” 

“I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,” said The Ven¬ 
geance with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. “You will not be 
late 1 ” 

“ I shall be there before the commencement.” 

“ And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, 
my soul,” said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had 
already turned into the street, “before the tumbrils arrive ! ” 

Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she 
heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so 
went through the mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. 
The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her as she 
walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure and 
her superb moral endowments. 

There were many women at that time, upon whom the time 
laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but there was not one 
among them 'more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now 
taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless 
character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, 
of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its 
possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an 
instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time 
would have heaved her up, under any circumstances. But im¬ 
bued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and 
an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her 


352 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she had 
ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her. 

It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for 
the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was 
nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a widow and his 
daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because 
they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no 
right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her 
having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had been laid 
low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she 
had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if 
she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have 
gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change 
places with the man who sent her there. 

Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. 
Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain 
weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her coarse red 
cap. Lying hidden in her bosom was a loaded pistol. Lying 
hidden at her waist was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, 
and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and 
with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked 
in her girlhood, barefoot and barelegged, on the brown sea-sand, 
Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. 

Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very 
moment waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned 
out last night, the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had 
much engaged Mr. Lorry’s attention. It was not merely de¬ 
sirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was of the highest 
importance that the time occupied in examining it and its pas¬ 
sengers should be reduced to the utmost; since their escape 
might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and 
there. Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, 
that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, 
should leave it at three o’clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance 
known to that period. Unencumbered with luggage, they would 
soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the 
road, would order its horses in advance, and greatly facilitate 
its progress during the precious hours of the night, when delay 
was the most to be dreaded. 




A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


853 


Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service 
in that pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She 
and Jerry had beheld the coach start, had known who it was 
that Solomon brought, had passed some ten minutes in tortures 
of suspense, and were now concluding their arrangements to fol¬ 
low the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking her way through 
the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the else-deserted 
lodging in which they held their consultation. 

“Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, 
whose agitation was so great that she could hardly speak, or 
stand, or move, or live, — “ what do you think of our not start¬ 
ing from this courtyard? Another carriage having already 
gone from here to-day, it might awaken suspicion.” 

“ My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “is as you’re 
right. Likewise wot I’ll stand by you, right or wrong.” 

“I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious 
creatures,” said Miss Pross, wildly crying, “ that I am incapable 
of forming any plan. Are you capable of forming any plan, 
my dear good Mr. Cruncher ? ” 

“ Respectin’ a future spear o’ life, miss,” returned Mr. 
Cruncher, “ I hope so. Respectin’ any present use o’ this here 
blessed old head o’ mine, I think not. Would you do me the 
favour, miss, to take notice o’ two promises and wows wot it is 
my wishes fur to record in this here crisis ? ” 

“ Oh, for gracious sake ! ” cried Miss Pross, still wildly cry¬ 
ing, “ record them at once, and get them out of the way, like 
an excellent man.” 

“First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and 
who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, “ them poor things 
well out o’ this, never no more will I do it, never no more ! ” 

“I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, 
“ that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you 
not to think it necessary to mention more particularly what 
it is.” 

“No, miss,” returned Jerry, “it shall not be named to you. 
Second : them poor things well out o’ this, and never no more 
will I interfere with Mrs. Cruncher’s flopping, never no more ! ” 
“Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,” said 
Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, “ I 


354 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it en 
tirely under her own superintendence. — Oh, my poor darlings ! * 

“I go so far as to say, miss, morehover,” proceeded Mr. 
Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from 
a pulpit— “and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. 
Cruncher through yourself — that wot my opinions respectin' 
flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with 
all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present 
time.” 

“ There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,” cried 
the distracted Miss Pross, “ and I hope she finds it answering 
her expectations.” 

“ Forbid it,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solem¬ 
nity, additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth 
and holdout, “as anything wot I have ever said or done should 
be wisited on my earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! 
Forbid it as we shouldn’t all flop (if it was anyways conwen- 
ient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal risk! Forbid it, miss ! 
Wot I say, for — bid it!” This was Mr, Cruncher’s conclu¬ 
sion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one. 

And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the 
streets, came nearer and nearer. 

“If we ever get back to our native land,” said Miss Pross, 
“ you may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I 
may be able to remember and understand of what you have so 
impressively said ; and at all events you may be sure that I 
shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this 
dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr. 
Cruncher, let us think ! ” 

Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, 
came nearer and nearer. 

“If you were to go before,” said Miss Pross, “and stop the 
vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait some¬ 
where for me ; wouldn’t that be best 1 ” 

Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. 

“ Where could you wait for me ? ” asked Miss Pross. 

Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no 
locality but Temple Bar. Alas, Temple Bar was hundreds of 
miles away, and Madame Defarge was drawing very near indeed 



A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


355 


“By the cathedral door,” said Miss Pross. “Would it be 
much out of the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral 
door between the two towers 1 ” 

“ No, miss,” answered Mr. Cruncher. 

“Then, like the best of men,” said Miss Pross, “go to the 
posting-house straight, and make that change.” 

“ I am doubtful,” said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking 
his head, “about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know 
what may happen.” 

“Heaven knows we don’t,” returned Miss Pross, “but have 
no fear for me. Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o’clock 
or as near it as you can, and I am sure it will be better than 
our going from here. I feel certain of it. There ! Bless you, 
Mr. Cruncher ! Think — not of me, but of the lives that may 
depend on both of us ! ” 

This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agonised 
entreaty clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encour¬ 
aging nod or two, he immediately went out to alter the arrange¬ 
ments, and left her by herself to follow as she had proposed. 

The having originated a precaution, which was already in 
course of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The 
necessity of composing her appearance, so that it should attract 
no special notice in the streets, was another relief. She looked 
at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past two. She had 
no time to lose, but must get ready at once. 

Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the 
deserted rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind 
every open door in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water 
and began laving her eyes, which were swollen and red. Haunted 
by her feverish apprehensions, she could not bear to have her 
sight obscured for a minute at a time by the dripping water, but 
constantly paused and looked round to see that there was no one 
watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried out, 
for she saw a figure standing in the room. 

The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to 
the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through 
much staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water. 

Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, “ The wife 
of Evrdmonde; where is she ? ” 


356 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all 
standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was 
to shut them. There were four in the room, and she shut them 
all. She then placed herself before the door of the chamber 
which Lucie had occupied. 

Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid 
movement, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross 
had nothing beautiful about her; years had not tamed the wild¬ 
ness, or softened the grimness, of her appearance; but she, too, 
was a determined woman in her different way, and she measured 
Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch. 

“ You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” 
said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall 
not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.” 

Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with 
something of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were 
at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as 
Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong 
hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that Miss Pross 
was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that 
Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent enemy. 

“ On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight 
movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, “where they 
reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make 
my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her.” 

“I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, 
“ and you may depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against 
them.” 

Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the 
other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce 
from look and manner what the unintelligible words meant. 

“ It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me 
at this moment,” said Madame Defarge. “ Good patriots will 
know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I 
wish to see her. Do you hear ? ” 

“If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss 
Pross, “ and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose 
a splinter of me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your 
match.” 



























































































- 


S • 



































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


35 ? 


Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic 
remarks in detail, but she so far understood them as to per¬ 
ceive that she was set at naught. 

“Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, 
frowning. “ I take no answer from you. I demand to see her. 
Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out of the 
way of the door and let me go to her! ” This, with an angry 
explanatory wave of her right arm. 

“ I little thought,” said Miss Pross, “ that I should ever want 
to understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all 
I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect 
the truth, or any part of it.” 

Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s 
eyes. Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where 
she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her; but she 
now advanced one step. 

“ I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross ; “ I am desperate. I don't 
care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer 
I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. 
I’ll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if 
you lay a finger on me ! ” 

Thus Miss Pross,with a shake of her head and a flash of her 
eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a 
whole breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow 
in her life. 

But her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought 
the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that 
Madame Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weak¬ 
ness. “Ha, ha!” she laughed, “you poor wretch! What 
are you worth ! I address myself to that doctor.” Then she 
raised her voice and called out, “ Citizen Doctor! Wife of 
Evrdmonde! Child of Evrdmonde ! Any person but this 
miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge! ” 

Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure 
in the expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiv¬ 
ing apart from either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge 
that they were gone. Three of the doors she opened swiftly, 
and looked in. 

“ Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried 


358 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is 
no one in that room behind you ! Let me look.” 

“ Never! ” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as 
perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer. 

“If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be 
pursued and brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself. 

“ As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room 
or not, you are uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to her- 
self; “and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your 
knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you shall not 
leave here while I can hold you.” 

“ I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped 
me, I will tear you to pieces but I will have you from that door,” 
said Madame Defarge. 

“We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary court¬ 
yard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily 
strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here is 
worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling,” said Miss Pross. 

Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the in¬ 
stinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her 
arms, and held her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge 
to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous te¬ 
nacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her 
tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that 
they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and 
tore her face; but Miss Pross, with her head down, held her 
round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a 
drowning woman. 

Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at 
her encircled waist. “ It is under my arm,” said Miss Pross, 
in smothered tones, “you shall not draw it. I am stronger 
than you, I bless Heaven for it. I’ll hold you till one or other 
of us faints or dies ! ” 

Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross 
looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and 
a crash, and stood alone — blinded with smoke. 

All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an 
awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the 
furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground. 





A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


359 


In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross 
passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the 
stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself 
of the consequences of what she did, in time to check herself 
and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door again; but 
she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet and 
other things that she must wear. These she put on, out on the 
staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking away 
the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments, to 
breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. 

By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could 
hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped. By 
good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance 
as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She 
needed both advantages, for the marks of griping fingers were 
deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily 
composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a 
hundred ways. 

In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door-key in the river. 
Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, 
and waiting there, she thought, what if the key were already 
taken in a net, what if it were identified, what if the door 
were opened and the remains discovered, what if she were 
stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with 
murder! 

In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort appeared, 
took her in, and took her away. 

“Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him. 

“ The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked sur¬ 
prised by the question and by her aspect. 

“ I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “ What do you say ? ” 

It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; 
Miss Pross could not hear him. “ So I’ll nod my head,” 
thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed; “at all events she’ll see that.” 
And she did. 

“ Is there any noise in the streets now ? ” asked Miss Pross 
again, presently. 

Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. 

“ I don’t hear it.” 


860 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“Gone deaf in a hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, 
with his mind much disturbed; “ wot’s come to her ? ” 

“ I feel,” said Miss Pross, “ as if there had been a flash and 
a crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear 
in this life.” 

“ Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition ! ” said Mr. Cruncher, 
more and more disturbed. “ Wot can she have been a takin’, 
to keep her courage up ? Hark! There’s the roll of them 
dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?” 

“ I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, 
“ nothing. Oh, my good man, there was first a great crash, and 
then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and 
unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my life 
lasts.” 

“If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very 
nigh their journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his 
shoulder, “it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear any¬ 
thing else in this world.” 

And indeed she never did. 


CHAPTER XY 

THE FOOTSTEPS DIE OUT FOR EVER 

Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and 
harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. 
All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagi¬ 
nation could record itself are fused in the one realisation, Guil¬ 
lotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of 
soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn 
which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain thai 
those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of 
shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself 
into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious 
licence and oppression ever again, and it will surely yield the 
same fruit according to its kind. 

Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again 
to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they 





A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


361 


shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equi¬ 
pages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the 
churches that are not my father’s house but dens of thieves, 
the huts of millions of starving peasants ! No ; the great 
magician who majestically works out the appointed order of 
the Creator never reverses his transformations. “ If thou be 
changed into this shape by the will of Cod,” say the seers to 
the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “ then remain so ! 
But if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, 
then resume thy former aspect! ” Changeless and hopeless, the 
tumbrils roll along. 

As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to 
plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the 
streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, 
and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular 
inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many win¬ 
dows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the 
hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the 
faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors 
to see the sight; then he points his finger, w r kh something of 
the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this 
cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and 
who there the day before. 

Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and 
all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others 
with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, 
seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, 
there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the 
multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in 
pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get 
their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable 
creature of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by 
horror that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole 
number appeals, by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. 

There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the 
tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them and 
they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the 
same question, for it is always followed by a press of people 
towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart 


862 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The 
leading curiosity is, to know which is he ; he stands at the back 
of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a 
mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. 
He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always 
speaks to the girl. Here and there in a long street of Saint 
Honors, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, 
it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more 
loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his 
arms being bound. 

On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming up of the tum¬ 
brils, stands the spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first 
of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. 
He already asks himself, “Has he sacrificed me?” when his 
face clears, as he looks into the third. 

“ Which is Evrdmonde ? ” said a man behind him. 

“ That. At the back there.” 

“With his hand in the girl’s ? ” 

“Yes.” 

The man cries, “ Down, Evr^monde! To the Guillotine all 
aristocrats ! Down, Evr^monde! ” 

“ Hush, hush ! ” the spy entreats him timidly. 

“ And why not, citizen ? ” 

“ He is going to pay the forfeit; it will be paid in five min¬ 
utes more. Let him be at peace.” 

But the man continuing to exclaim, “ Down, Evr^monde ! ” 
the face of Evre'monde is for a moment turned towards him. 
Evr^monde then sees the spy, and looks attentively at him, and 
goes his way. 

The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow 
ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into 
the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this 
side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last 
plough as it passes on, for all are following to the guillotine. 
In front of it, seated in chairs as in a garden of public diversion, 
are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the fore¬ 
most chairs stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. 

“ Th^rhse ! ” she cries, in her shrill tones. “ Who has seen 
her ? Thdrhse Defarge! ” 





In crossing the bridge, she dropped the key in the river. (The Pont-Neuf, as it appeared at the 

time of the story.) 





































































A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


363 


“She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the 
sisterhood. 

“No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance petu¬ 
lantly. “ Th^rkse.” 

“ Louder,” the woman recommends. 

Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will 
scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath 
or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other 
women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet, 
although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is question¬ 
able whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her! 

“Bad Fortune ! ” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in 
the chair, “ and here are the tumbrils ! And Evrdmonde will 
be despatched in a wink, and she not here ! See her knitting 
in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with 
vexation and disappointment! ” 

As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the 
tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte 
Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash ! — A head is held up, 
and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look 
at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. 

The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes 
up. Crash ! — And the knitting-women, never faltering or 
pausing in their work, count Two. 

The supposed Evrdmonde descends, and the seamstress is 
lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient 
hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He 
gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that con¬ 
stantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and 
thanks him. 

“ But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, 
for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should 
I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to 
death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I 
think you were sent to me by Heaven.” 

“Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes 
upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.” 

“I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind 
nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid.” 


364 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


“ They will be rapid. Fear not! ” 

The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but 
they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, 
hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Univer¬ 
sal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together 
on the dark highway, to repair home together and to rest in her 
bosom. 

“ Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last 
question ? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me—just a little.” 

“ Tell me what it is.” 

“ I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like my¬ 
self, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than 
I, and she lives in a farmer’s house in the south country. Pov¬ 
erty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate — for I can¬ 
not write — and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better 
as it is.” 

“Yes, yes : better as it is.” 

“ What I have been thinking as we came along, and what' 
I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind, strong face 
which gives me so much support, is this: If the Republic 
really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, 
and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time; she 
may even live to be old.” 

“ What then, my gentle sister ? ” 

“ Do you think ” — the uncomplaining eyes, in which there 
is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little 
more and tremble—“that it will seem long to me, while I 
wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I 
will be mercifully sheltered ? ” 

“It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no 
trouble there.” 

“ You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to 
kiss you now? Is the moment come?” 

“Yes.” 

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each 
other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; 
nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient 
face. She goes next before him — is gone; the knitting 
women count Twenty-Two. 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


365 


“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he 
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” 

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, 
the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, 
so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of 
water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three. 


They said of him about the city that night, that it was the 
peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he 
looked sublime and prophetic. 

One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe — a 
woman — had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long 
before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were 
inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they 
were prophetic, they would have been these : — 

“I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Jury¬ 
man, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have 
risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive 
instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use''. I see a 
beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, 
in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, 
through long, long years to come, I see the evil of this time, end 
of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually 
making expiation for itself and wearing out. 

“I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, use¬ 
ful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see 
no more. I see her with a child upon her bosom, who bears 
my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise re¬ 
stored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. 
I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years’ time 
enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his 
reward. 

“I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the 
hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an 
old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I 
see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side 



866 


A TALE OF TWO CITIES 


in their last earthly bed, and I know that each w~as not more 
honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the 
souls of both. 

“I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my 
name, a man, winning his way up in that path of life which 
once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is 
made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I 
threw upon it faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges 
and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead 
that I know and golden hair, to this place — then fair to look 
upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement — and I hear 
him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. 

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever 
done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever 
known.” 


APPENDIX 


I. Comments, Suggestions, and Questions by 
Chapters 

BOOK I —RECALLED TO LIFE 

Dickens is often very happy in his choice of names and 
titles. As you read, decide whether he has chosen a good name 
for this division of his novel and whether he impresses it suffi¬ 
ciently on the reader. Also note his chapter headings, and see 
if there are any that you would like to change. 

Chapter I gives us details of the setting. How many are you 
already familiar with? 

Chapter II carries us through an unusual midnight adventure. 

(1) What do you make of the message brought by Jerry? 

(2) What impression do the two unknown passengers make 
on you? 

Chapter III forecasts a coming event. (1) Does the first 
paragraph suggest why Dickens, when he was working on a 
novel, found that his ability to write was stimulated by taking 
long walks in a city late at night? (2) Does Mr. Lorry’s dream 
make you feel that he is carrying on a conversation with a real 
person? (3) What is the value of so much repetition? 
(4) How long had this imaginary person been buried alive? 

Chapter IV introduces us to a comfortable eighteenth-cen¬ 
tury inn of the better sort. The rooms are named, not numbered, 
and a cheerful fire of sea-coals brought from some coal port — 
possibly Newcastle itself — burns in the grate to welcome a 
traveler. (1) Do you find any suggestion that the little port 
of Dover might be a haven for smugglers? (2) What do you 
think of Mr. Lorry’s method of breaking his news? (3) Could 

367 


368 


APPENDIX 


the Doctor of Beauvais — Beauvais is a French town about forty- 
miles from Paris — have been the person with whom Mr. Lorry 
was carrying on his dream conversation the night before? 
(4) What differences in appearance and personality do you 
note in the “brown” Mr. Lorry and the “red” Miss Pross? 

Chapter V brings us to Paris. (1) Does the picture painted 
bjr Dickens prepare us for the revolution that we know is to 
come? (2) Why did Defarge rub out the word “ Blood ” from 
the wall? (3) What is the significance of Madame Defarge’s 
“ just a grain of a cough ” ? (4) Why do you think that De¬ 

farge wanted the three Jacques to see the shoemaker? 

Chapter VI introduces us to the man who had been “ buried 
alive.” (1) What do you think he means by “One Hundred 
and Five, North Tower ” ? (2) Who does Dr. Manette think 

that Lucie is when he first notices her golden hair? (3) Why was 
it necessary for Mr. Lorry to recognize Dr. Manette? (4) What 
was the last picture that Mr. Lorry saw when he drove away? 


BOOK II —THE GOLDEN THREAD 

The name of this book was perhaps suggested by the golden 
hair of Lucie Manette, but Dickens uses it figuratively to sug¬ 
gest the power of her loving and understanding personality on 
all who came within its influence. Count how many times 
Dickens refers to it in the chapters of Book II. 

Chapter I introduces us to Tellson’s Bank, and we again meet 
their “ odd-job ” man who was so mystified over Mr. Lorry’s 
message “ Recalled to Life.” (1) Why do jmu think Jerry calls 
his wife “ Aggerawayter ” ? 

Chapter II introduces us to several new characters and is 
the real beginning of the plot. (1) What is the advantage of 
making us see these characters through the eyes of Jerry? 

(2) What characters are present whom we have met before? 

(3) How have they changed during five years? 


LESSON HELPS 


369 


\ 


Chapter III gives some good examples of the author’s gift 
of irony. It may be a little confusing unless the student makes 
a list of the witnesses for the prosecution and the defense and 
balances the evidence. (1) What do you really think of John 
Barsad and Roger Cly? (2) What do you think Sydney 
Carton wrote in the note that he tossed to Mr. Stryver? (3) By 
what other means has the author called attention to Carton? 
(4) How is this chapter connected with Chapters II and III 
in Book I? (5) Do you think that Dickens’s early experience 
as a successful newspaper reporter of notable trials was of help 
to him in writing this chapter? Why? 

Chapter IV shows us some interesting customs of the period 
and carries us to dinner at the old Cheshire Cheese. (1) Can 
you account in any way for the peculiar effect Darnay seems 
to have on Dr. Manette? (2) Why did Carton break the glass 
from which he drank the toast to Lucie? (3) Does he really 
“ care for no man on earth ” ? What is his real feeling about 
Darnay? 

Chapter V shows us Mr. Stryver’s “Jackal.” Hilary and 
Michaelmas stand for what we would call the January and 
November terms of court. (1) What do you think the title 
really means? (2) Why does Mr. Stryver call Carton 
“ Memory ” ? (3) Where had Carton completed his legal 

training? (4) Why did Carton call Miss Manette “a golden¬ 
haired doll ” and refuse to drink her health? 

Chapter VI, in its title, again illustrates Dickens’s gift of 
irony. (1) Who is the only man that Miss Pross considers 
good enough for her Ladybird? Why? (2) Name the “hun¬ 
dred ” gathered under the plane tree. (3) How do you ac¬ 
count for the peculiar effect of Darnay’s story on Dr. Manette? 
(4) What promise did Carton make near the close of this 
chapter? 

Chapter VII carries us back to Paris, where we meet Mon¬ 
seigneur, a name by which Dickens typifies first a member of 
the royal family, probably the king’s cousin, the Duke of 
Orleans, and, later in the chapter, the king himself. In the 
succeeding chapter heading he transfers the title to one of 


370 


APPENDIX 


the nobility, the Marquis of Evremonde, a true type of the 
old order of the French nobility. A farmer-general was an 
agent, much hated by the people, to whom the taxes in a cer¬ 
tain district were farmed out. The public executioner was 
called “ Monsieur Paris,” or “ Monsieur Orleans,” etc. accord¬ 
ing to the city in which he lived. The purpose of the whole 
first part of this chapter is to show us the artificiality and in¬ 
stability of the court and prepare us for the coming revo¬ 
lution. Note the striking contrast of the last part of the chap¬ 
ter with the first. (1) Why did the Marquis call Defarge a 
philosopher? (2) Who threw the coin? 

Chapter VIII has been called “ a succession of scenes ”; 
what do you think is their purpose? (1) Who do you think 
was the man swinging from the drag of the coach? 

Chapter IX makes significant use of the old Greek story of 
Medusa. Notice the fine description of the hours from mid¬ 
night through the dawn. (1) Dickens wrote Bulwer-Lytton, 
another English novelist, that he meant the old Marquis to rep¬ 
resent “ the time going out, as his nephew represents the time 
coming in.” How successful is he? (2) What does Darnay 
mean by “ We have done wrong ” ? (3) Can you account for 

the uncle’s knowing about the nephew’s French friends who 
live in Soho Square? 

Chapter X has much plot interest. Notice how carefully 
Dickens checks on the passage of time. (1) What are the “ two 
promises ” ? (2) What do you think can be Dr. Manette’s 

reason for not letting Darnay tell his true name? (3) Is the 
possibility of Lucie’s marriage sufficient to account for the pe¬ 
culiar effect of this interview on her father? 

Chapter XI gives us some more of Dickens’s irony. (1) 
Why does Carton drink so much and say so little? 

Chapter XII shows Mr. Lorry’s tact. (1) Does he get the 
better of Mr. Stryver; or Mr. Stryver of him? 

Chapter XIII shows us the real Sydney Carton. (1) What 
are the two promises? 


LESSON HELPS 


371 


Chapter XIV takes us “fishing.” (1) Why did the rabble 
break up the spy’s funeral? (2) Where had Jerry ever seen 
the dead man? (3) Who do you suppose- was the single 
mourner who escaped? (4) Why did Jerry go to see his doctor 
on the way home from the funeral? (5) How did he as “ honest 
tradesman ” supplement the income that he made doing odd 
jobs for Tellson’s? 

Chapter XV brings a former roadside acquaintance to Paris 
to tell a strange story. The account of the punishment of 
Damiens for wounding Louis XV, in making an attempt on that 
monarch’s life, is true to history. The idea of a gallows forty 
feet high is also based on history, for once “ there was an 
indubitable scarcity of bread,” according to Carlyle, “ and so 
the 2nd day of May, 1775, these waste multitudes do, here, at 
Versailles Chateau, in widespread wretchedness, in sallow faces, 
squalor, winged raggedness, present, as in legible hieroglyphic 
writing, their Petition of Grievances. The Chateau-gates must 
be shut; but the king will appear on the balcony and speak to 
them. They have seen the king’s face; their Petition of Griev¬ 
ances has been, if not read, looked at. For answer, two of them 
are hanged on a new gallows forty feet high; and the rest are 
driven back to their dens, — for a time.” The Bull’s Eye was 
really the great hall at Versailles in which the courtiers waited 
for an audience with the king. It was called the (Eil-de-Bceuf 
or Bull’s Eye from a wide oval window set in one end of it; 
therefore, Dickens uses the expression figuratively to refer to 
the court itself. (1) What do you think is the something 
inaudible and invisible that Madame Defarge “ sees a long way 
off ” ? (2) How does Dickens check on the passage of time in 

this chapter? (3) Is the road-mender a good story-teller? 
Why? (4) Why is the road-mender so pleased at Versailles? 
(5) Why are the Defarges pleased with the road-mender? 

Chapter XVI shows us Madame Defarge wearing a rose and 
inscribing her register. (1) What do you infer from the fact 
that there is a “ Jacques of the police ” ? (2) Why did Madame 

Defarge tie “ a knot with flashing eyes as if it throttled a foe ” ? 

(3) What is the significance of Madame Defarge’s rose? 

(4) Why should Defarge be troubled when he hears that his old 
master’s daughter is to marry Charles Darnay? (5) How did 


372 


APPENDIX 


Charles Darnay, who was really the young Marquis of Evre- 
monde, get his English name of Darnay? (6) Do you agree 
with Defarge that his wife is “ a great woman, a strong woman, 
a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman ” ? 

Chapter XVII tells us something of Dr. Manette’s suffering 
and despair during the eighteen years that he was “ buried alive.” 
(1) Had he outgrown his desire for revenge? (2) Why is 
Lucie so anxious about him that night? 

Chapter XVIII shows us that a “ mere man of business ” can 
be a true friend. (1) When, in this chapter, do we note the first 
indication of the change in Dr. Manette? (2) On what other 
occasions, in earlier chapters, has he been upset in the same 
way? (3) What is your theory about this? 

Chapter XIX gives us an expert medical opinion on a diffi¬ 
cult case. (1) What do you think of Mr. Lorry’s tact? (2) Are 
he and Miss Pross conspirators in crime or conspirators in 
friendship? 

Chapter XX shows us an old friend establishing himself on a 
new footing. (1) Does Darnay understand Carton? (2) Why 
can Lucie read his character so well? 

Chapter XXI brings Soho Square the echoes of “ headlong, 
mad, and dangerous footsteps ” in Paris. (1) How many years 
have passed since Chapter XVIII? (2) How is the actual date 
of the month and year established? (3) Why did Defarge 
search so carefully in One Hundred and Five North Tower? 

Chapter XXII introduces a new character, the Vengeance. 
(1) How long is it after the fall of the Bastille? (2) Does this 
chapter stress the setting, the characters, or the plot? 

Chapter XXIII illuminates the landscape of Monsieur le 
Marquis de Saint Evremonde’s Chateau. Carlyle says of 
this time, in the rural sections of France: “ Seventy-two Cha¬ 
teaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais alone. 
This seems the centre of the conflagration . . . but the whole 
South-East is in a blaze. All over the North from Rouen to 


LESSON HELPS 


373 


Metz, disorder is abroad: smugglers of salt go openly in armed 
bands; the barriers of towns are burnt; toll-gatherers, tax- 
gatherers, official persons put to flight. ‘ It was thought/ says 
Young ” (an English traveler) “ ‘ the people from hunger would 
revolt’: and we see they have done it. . . . They ring the 
church bell by way of tocsin: and the Parish turns out to the 
work. Ferocity, atrocity; hunger and revenge. Such work 
as we can imagine! ” (1) Why has the road-mender changed 

his blue cap for a red one? (2) What was the signal given by 
Jacques to the road-mender? (3) Who were the “ four heavy- 
treading, unkempt figures ” from the East, West, North, and 
South? (4) Why wouldn’t the soldiers assist Gabelle? (5) 
Why did the villagers say, “ It must be forty feet high! ” ? 

Chapter XXIV shows us an honorable French aristocrat. 
The loadstone rock is a mountain, told of in The Arabian 
Nights, that had the magnetic power of drawing the iron bolts 
and nails from the unfortunate ships that sailed too near it. 
What does Dickens make it symbolize here? (1) How are the 
theme of Book II and the passage of time again indicated in this 
chapter? (2) Explain the effect of Mr. Stryver’s remarks on 
Charles Damay. (3) Why does Mr. Lorry take Jerry with 
him? (4) If you had been in Darnay’s place what would 
you have done ? 


BOOK III —THE TRACK OF THE STORM 

Everything in the two previous Books has been working up to 
the bursting of the storm into whose track we are drawn in 
Book III. 

Chapter I carries us to the climax of a wild journey. “ In 
secret” in a communistic or republican form of government 
seems equivalent to imprisonment by lettres de cachet under 
the monarchy. (1) Why was the day that Darnay left Eng¬ 
land a particularly unlucky one for him to start for France? 
(2) How long does it take him to get to Paris? Why? (3) Why 
do you think Defarge refuses him any help at all? (4) Why 
do the other prisoners in La Force remind Darnay of ghosts? 


374 


APPENDIX 


Chapter II brings a grave problem to Mr. Lorry. (1) Com¬ 
pare Tellson’s Paris office with Tellson’s in England. (2) Why 
does Mr. Lorry thank God that no one near and dear to him is 
in Paris that night? (3) How is Dr. Manette able to be of 
unusual service? 

Chapter III forecasts danger to Lucie and her daughter. 

(1) Why does Mr. Lorry engage other lodgings for Lucie? 

(2) What does Madame Defarge and her knitting recall to Mr. 
Lorry? (3) How does Miss Pross show that she thinks herself 
more than a match for any foreigner? 

Chapter IV is notable for the skill with which Dickens covers 
the outstanding historical facts of the Reign of Terror (period 
of a year and three months), at the same time weaving the 
history of our characters into this tragic background. (1) When 
Dr. Manette was about to secure Darnay’s release, what do you 
think was the “ unexplained check ” that kept his son-in-law 
still a prisoner? (2) What was the secret strength that sus¬ 
tained Dr. Manette during this period? 

Chapter V casts once more the shadow of Madame Defarge 
on the two Lucies. The wood-sawyer, our old friend the road- 
mender, calls himself “ Sanson of the firewood guillotine ” be¬ 
cause Sanson was the name of the public executioner who oper¬ 
ated the guillotine. (1) What is particularly grim about the 
wood-sawyer’s humor? (2) Who do you think is Mr. Lorry’s 
visitor, the owner of the riding coat upon the chair? 

Chapter VI carries us to Charles Darnay’s second trial for 
his life. (1) What was the “Evening Paper at La Force”? 
(2) Why is it fitting that Gabelle should assist in securing 
Darnay’s release? (3) What do you think of Darnay’s tri¬ 
umphal procession? 

Chapter VII puzzles Dr. Manette as to Darnay’s third de¬ 
nouncer. (1) Why does Miss Pross think that they have had 
quite enough of liberty? (2) Why does Lucie hear the foot¬ 
steps when no one else does? 

Chapter VIII brings Sydney Carton back into the story. 
(1) What does Miss Pross afterward remember that was strange 


LESSON HELPS 


375 


about Carton? (2) What are Carton’s cards, and which does 
he consider his ace? (3) Why does his steady drinking make 
Barsad fearful? (4) How does his previous legal training come 
to his help in dealing with the spy? (5) What is the unexpected 
card dealt to Carton by Jerry Cruncher? (6) Why do you 
think that Carton poured his last glass of brandy slowly upon 
the hearth and watched it as it dropped? 

Chapter IX carries us through the night preceding Darnay’s 
third trial and to its opening scene. (1) Do you think that Mr. 
Lorry should accept Jerry’s defense and “ stand his friend ” when 
they get back to Tellson’s? (2) How is Carton able to find 
his way so well about the streets of Paris? (3) Why does he go 
and stand before the Prison of La Force? (4) What does he 
buy at the chemist’s? (5) Who are all the people that he speaks 
to? (6) What are all the strange thoughts that come into his 
mind? 

Chapter X brings a startling denunciation against Charles 
Darnay and closes his third trial for his life. In regard to some 
criticism brought against him for his use of old feudal privileges 
and oppressions of the nobility in A Tale of Two Cities Dickens 
says, in a letter to Bulwer-Lytton, “ I see no reason to doubt, 
but on the contrary, many reasons to believe, that some of these 
privileges had been used to the frightful oppression of the 
peasant; quite as near to the time of the doctor’s narrative, 
which, you will remember dates long before the Terror. . . . 
There is a curious book printed in Amsterdam, written to make 
out no case whatever, and tiresome enough in its literal dic¬ 
tionary-minuteness . . . which is full authority for my mar¬ 
quis. This is Mercier’s Tableau de Paris. Rousseau is my 
authority for the peasant’s shutting up his house when he had 
a bit of meat.” In his preface Dickens also states that when¬ 
ever any reference, however slight, is made to the condition 
of the French people before the Revolution, it is truly made 
on the faith of trustworthy witnesses. (1) Does Dr. Manette’s 
letter sufficiently explain Madame Defarge’s attitude through¬ 
out the story? (2) Does it explain the strange effect that 
Darnay’s story of the prisoner in the Tower of London once 
had on Dr. Manette? (3) Does it explain the curious effect that 
Darnay has seemed to have on him at certain other times? 


376 


APPENDIX 


Chapter XI keeps the shadow of Madame Defarge over the 
family of Evremonde. (1) What does Darnay mean when he 
says, “ Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was 
not in nature to so unhappy a beginning ” ? (2) What did 

little Lucie hear Carton say when he left her mother? (3) Why 
does Carton urge Dr. Manette to make further effort to save 
Darnay? (4) If there was no real hope, why did Carton walk 
down the stairs with such a settled step? 

Chapter XII shows us Sydney Carton in charge of affairs. 
(1) Why did Carton think it best that the Saint Antoine wine¬ 
shop proprietors should know there was such a man as himself 
in Paris? (2) How does he outwit Madame Defarge? (3) 
What does he find out by his visit? (4) Why does Mr. Lorry 
agree to take charge of the passports and promise that he will 
get his friends out of Paris the next day according to Carton’s 
instructions? 

Chapter XIII shows Sydney Carton still in charge. (1) 
What do Darnay’s meditations and his last two letters show 
about him as a man? (2) Is the third letter that he writes his 
own, or Carton’s? (3) Though it contains no address, can we 
tell for whom the letter is meant? (4) How does the seamstress 
being brought in help the story? (5) Is the escape from Paris 
well told? 

Chapter XIV shows Miss Pross a true Briton. Dickens 
wrote concerning this chapter to his friend, Bulwer-Lytton: 

“ I am not clear and I have never been clear, respecting that 
canon of fiction which forbids the interposition of accident in 
such a case as Madame Defarge’s death. Where the accident 
is inseparable from the passion and emotion of the character, 
where it is strictly consistent with the whole design, and arises 
out of some culminating proceeding on the part of the char¬ 
acter which the whole story has led up to, it seems to me to 
become, as it were, an act of divine justice. And when I use 
Miss Pross (though this is quite another question) to bring 
about that catastrophe, I have the positive intention of making 
that half-comic intervention a part of the desperate woman’s 
failure, and of opposing that mean death . . . instead of a des¬ 
perate one in the streets, which she wouldn’t have minded ... to 


LESSON HELPS 


377 


the dignity of Carton’s. (1) Why was it necessary to kill 
Madame Defarge at all? (2) Considering Miss Pross’s emo¬ 
tional state at the time, are her fears about the key natural? 

Chapter XV shows us Sydney Carton triumphant. (1) Why 
and how is Barsad brought into this chapter? (2) Why is the 
Vengeance brought in? (3) Can you tell why the so-called 
Evremonde’s face was called that night the “ peacefulest man’s 
face ever beheld there ” ? 


II. Thought Questions on the Novel as a Whole 

(1) Name. While Dickens was working on the idea of a novel 
of the French Revolution, One of These Days, Memory Carton, 
and The Thread of Gold were all considered as possible titles. 
Prove that his final choice, which he said fitted his need “ to a 
T” is better than those first thought of. 

(2) Theme. Is the theme or purpose of the novel sufficiently 
brought out in Darnay’s words to his uncle in Book II, Chapter 
IX; the words that he spoke to Dr. Manette after the reading 
of the accusation in his third trial, Book III, Chapter XI; and 
in the summary of the novelist himself at the beginning of the 
last chapter? 

(3) Plot. 

(a) Dickens is usually thought of as a novelist of char¬ 
acter. None of Dickens’s novels up to the time 
that he wrote A Tale of Two Cities had a real plot. 
Prove that this novel has by showing the necessary 
part played in the development of events by the 
following: 

Jerry Cruncher, the resurrectionist. 

The prison spies, Barsad and Cly. 

Miss Pross. 

Dr. Manette’s hidden paper. 

The fact that Ernest Defarge was a former servant 
to Dr. Manette. 

Darnay’s promise to Dr. Manette. 

Gabelle’s letter. 


378 


APPENDIX 


Darnay’s effort to right the wrongs done by his 
family. 

(6) Account fully for what reasons Dickens took each of 
the following to Paris during or after August, 1792: 


Little Lucie 
Miss Pross 
Dr. Manette 


Mr. Lorry 


Jerry Cruncher 
Charles Darnay 
Lucie Darnay 


Sydney Carton 


(c) Why were John Barsad and Roger Cly already there? 

(d) Why did Madame Defarge cherish such bitter hatred 

against the race of Evremonde? 

(4) The Setting. Dickens’s biographer, John Forster, says: 
“ We see the domestic life of a few private people so knitted 
and interwoven with the outbreak of a terrible public event, that 
one seems but part of the other.” 

(a) Does Dickens sufficiently show that the Revolution 

was brought about by the oppression of the people 
of France? 

(b) How did the conditions of the Reign of Terror affect 

the lives of Mr. Lorry, Dr. Manette, Lucie, Little 
Lucie, Miss Pross, Jerry, Sydney Carton? 

(c) Does he make us feel that the story could not have 

happened in other cities and under other social and 
historical conditions? 

(5) The Characters. Dickens said that he wished to make 
A Tale of Two Cities a story with characters true to nature, but 
that the story should express more than the characters them¬ 
selves could express by dialogue. He tried to make it “ a story 
of incident, pounding the characters in its own mortar and beat¬ 
ing their interest out of them.” 

(а) In which characters does he best succeed with this 

purpose? 

(б) Are there any characters so outstanding that they 

seem to take circumstances into their own hands 
and shape their own destiny? 


(c) Who is the most real character in the book to you? 
Why? 


LESSON HELPS 


379 


( d ) List in one column, the French characters whom we 
meet only in France; list in a third column those 
who are purely English, even though we later meet 
them in Paris; list in the second, or middle column, 
those who are French by birth, but choose to live 
in England, and later are called back to Paris by 
their several destinies. 


III. Quick Oral Review Tests 
CHARACTERS 


Identify the following in not more than ten words for each: 


1 . 

Jacques: One, Two, 

10. 

Jerry Cruncher, Jr. 


Three, Four, Five, Five- 

11. 

The Doctor of Beauvais 


and Twenty-Thousand 

12. 

Roger Cly 

2. 

The Vengeance 

13. 

The Shadow 

3. 

Gaspard 

14. 

Aggerawayter 

4. 

The Wood Sawyer 

15. 

Sanson of the firewood 

5. 

105 North Tower 


guillotine 

6. 

Joe 

16. 

Brother Solomon 

7. 

Gabelle 

17. 

The fellow of no delicacy 

8. 

The Jackal 

18. 

Ladybird 

9. 

The Lion 

19. 

The honest tradesman 


20. Monseigneur 


PLACES 

In not more than ten words for each, identify the following 
places as to locale and some fact or incident connected with it: 


1 . 

Hanging Sword Alley 

10. 

Conciergerie 

2. 

La Force 

11. 

The Barrier 

3. 

Abbaye 

12. 

Saint Paul’s 

4. 

Temple Bar 

13. 

Saint Antoine 

5. 

Place de la Concorde 

14. 

Versailles 

6. 

Bastille 

15. 

The Tuileries 

7. 

Soho Square 

16. 

Newgate 

8. 

Notre Dame 

17. 

Fleet Street 

9. 

The Temple 

18. 

Tellson’s 


380 


APPENDIX 


19. Dover 21. The Tower 

20. Saint Pancras-in-the- 22. Vauxhall 

Fields 23. Ranelagh 


SPECIAL WORDS AND PHRASES 

Explain the following words and phrases according to their 
use in the novel: 


1 . 

Citizen, citizeness 

11. 

Register 

2. 

Knitting 

12. 

Tricolor 

3. 

Poisoning the water 

13. 

Loadstone Rock 

4. 

Sheep 

14. 

Hundreds of people 

5. 

Old Bailey spies 

15. 

Liberty cap 

6. 

Fishing 

16. 

A fellow of delicacy 

7. 

In secret 

17. 

The gorgon’s head 

8. 

Resurrectionist 

18. 

The grindstone 

9. 

Ace 

19. 

A hand at cards 

10. 

The stone face 

20. 

Red cap 


VOCABULARY 


Give meaning and use of the following words: 


1 . 

extermination 

11. 

post-horses 

2. 

tumbril 

12. 

postilion 

3. 

aristocrat 

13. 

denunciation 

4. 

emigrant or emigre 

14. 

hackney coach 

5. 

Carmagnole 

15. 

mail packet 

6. 

guillotine 

16. 

blunderbus 

7. 

barrier 

17. 

parricide 

8. 

chateau 

18. 

chaise 

9. 

lettre de cachet 

19. 

sedan chair 

10. 

pike 

20. 

tocsin 


IV. Special Plans and Projects 

Credit may be given for locating in the te?ct of A Tale of Two 
Cities all the quotations and citations made under “ Time in the 
Novel.’’ 


LESSON HELPS 


381 


Historical Time 


Time in the Novel 


“ The year of Our 
Lord 1775 ” 

1780 

1780-July 1789 


“Messages . . . from a Con¬ 
gress of British subjects 
in America.’’ 

American Revolution in 
progress. 


July 14, 1789 


Fall of the Bastille. 


August, 1789 


Uprising of the peasants, 
and burning of chateau. 


October, 1789 


April, 1792 
August, 1792 


The king and queen move 
from Versailles to the 
Tuileries. 

War declared against Prus¬ 
sia and Austria. 

Royal family prisoners. 

Severe laws against emi¬ 
grants. 


September 2, 
1792 


The prison massacres begin. 


September 22, 
1792 


January 21, 1793 
September, 1793 


France proclaimed a Re¬ 
public. 

Beginning of Reign of Ter¬ 
ror. 

Execution of King Louis 
XVI 

Law against suspected per¬ 
sons. 


October 16, 1793 
December, 1793 


Execution of Marie-Antoi- 
nette. 


Continuation of Reign of 
Terror. 


Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette 
travel to Paris. 

“Five Years Later.” 

“A Sight” at the Old Bailey. 

Darnay visits the Marquis. 

“More months to the num¬ 
ber of twelve had come 
and gone.” 

The road-mender’s tale, “I 
saw him a year ago.” 

Barsad brings English news 
to a French wine-shop. 

“And it was now about little 
Lucie’s sixth birthday.” 

The flames of the chateau of 
the Marquis “must be 
forty feet high ! ’ ’ 


“The August of the year one 
thousand seven hundred 
and ninety-two . . . and 
Monseigneur was scattered 
far and wide.” 

Darnay receives a letter. 

Mr. Lorry and Jerry leave 
for Paris August 9. 

Darnay leaves August 10. 

“The third night of the 
autumn month of Sep¬ 
tember,” Lucie and her 
household arrive. 


“One year and three months. 
During all that time Lucie 
was never sure. . . .” 


Carton arrives at Mr. 
Lorry’s. 

Darnay’s first trial in Paris. 
Darnay’s second trial in 
Paris. 

Sacrifice and safety. 

The end of the novel. 










382 


APPENDIX 


Scenes for Class Projects in Dramatization 

1. Darnay’s Trial at the Old Dailey. (Dialogue is complete 

for some of the witnesses, but it will have to be written for 
others.) 

2. Jerry Cruncher at Home. Book II, Chapters I and XIV. 

3. The Old Order and the New, or Darnay Visits the Stone 

Chateau. Book II, Chapter IX. 

4. The Road-Mender’s Story. Book II, Chapter XV. 

Scene I. The Wine-Shop. 

Scene II. The Attic. 

Scene III. The Road-Mender Leaves for Home. 

5. Barsad Visits the Wine-Shop. Book II, Chapter XVI. 

Scene I. The Night Before. 

Scene II. Madame Defarge’s Register. 

6. A Letter Draws Charles Darnay to the Loadstone Rock 

Book II, Chapter XXIV. 

Scene I. At Tellson’s. The morning of August 14, 1792. 
Scene II. A Temple Quadrangle. 

Scene III. Tellson’s Again, Eight p.m. 

7. Carton Plays a Hand at Cards. Book III Chapters VIII 

and IX. 

Scene I. Outside the “ Good Republican Brutus of An¬ 
tiquity.” 

Scene II. Tellson’s Paris Office. 

Scene III. The “ Honest Tradesman ” Defends Himself. 
Scene IV. Carton and Mr. Lorry. 

8. Carton Visits Charles Darnay at the Conciergerie Book 

III, Chapter XIII. 

9. Madame Defarge’s Last Visit. Book III, Chapter XIV. 

Scene I. Miss Pross and Jerry. 

Scene II. Miss Pross and Madame Defarge. 


LESSON HELPS 


383 


Topics to Investigate for Oral or Written 
Class Reports 

Much of the material necessary for these reports may be found 
in the books listed under “ Supplementary Reading ” at the end 
of the Appendix. 

A. Matters, Places, and People of General Interest for a 
Reader of “A Tale of Two Cities.” 

Places I Should Like to Visit in London 

Places I Should Like to Visit in Paris 

Dover, the Channel Port, Yesterday and Today 

Dover, the Channel Port, during the World War 

Calais, the French Channel Port, Yesterday and Today 

Calais, the French Channel Port, during the World War 

Julius Caesar at Paris and Dover 

Crossing the English Channel — from Julius Caesar and His 
Legionaries to Gertrude Ederle and Her Successors 
Lafayette, the Hero of Two Revolutions 
General Pershing in Paris 

Sir Christopher Wren, the Rebuilder of London 

Saint Paul’s, a Monument to Sir Christopher Wren 

The Tower of London 

London Prisons in English Literature 

The Story of Child’s Bank, London 

The Bank of England 

Temple Bar Then and Now 

The Latin Quarter of Paris 

B. Topics concerning the Revolution and Paris. 

The Bastille 

Famous Prisoners of the Bastille 

The' “ New Doctrine” or “New Philosophy” of the French 
in the Late Eighteenth Century 
The Jacquerie 

Dr. Guillotin and His Famous Machine 
Marie Antoinette, Dickens’s “ Queen With a Fair Face ” 
Madame Roland, “ One of the Most Remarkable Sufferers 
by the Same Axe ” 

Charlotte Corday 


384 


APPENDIX 


The Palace of Versailles 
The Palace of Tuileries 
The Story of Notre Dame 

The Story of the Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie 

C. Manners, Customs, Places, and People of the Period of 
the Novel. 

Prison Spies 

Famous English Highwaymen 
Crime and Punishment in England 
Crime and Punishment in France 
Costumes — London 
Costumes — Paris 
Travel by Land and Water 
Famous Pleasure Resorts of London 
A Morning in the Inner Temple 
An Afternoon on the Thames 

D. The People of the Novel Itself. 

The French Hero 
The English Hero 
The True Hero 

Mr. Lorry, an English Gentleman and Man of Business 
Miss Pross, a True Briton 

The Life of Lucie Manette — A Golden Thread 
The Biography of the Physician of Beauvais 
Therese Defarge, the Keeper of the Register 
Monseigneur, the Marquis of Evremonde — A Type of the 
Old Order 

E. Topics Concerning the Life and Works of Charles 
Dickens. 

A Sad Boyhood 
A Young Newspaper Reporter 
First Literary Ventures 

Parallels from. Life of Dickens in David Copperfield 
A Magazine Editor 
A Successful Novelist 


LESSON HELPS 


385 


Dickens in Paris 

Days and Nights in America 

A Day at Gadshill 

The Funeral and Grave of Charles Dickens 
Some Notable People of Dickens’s Novels 


Projects for the Visual-Minded, Artistic, and 
Dexterous 

(1) Make a map or chart of Darnay’s journey to Paris, show¬ 
ing his various delays. (2) Make a diagram of Carton’s mid¬ 
night walk in Paris, indicating his conversations or meditations 
at certain points. (3) Make a sketch or model of one of the 
following: an English stagecoach, any other type of coach, a 
chaise, a sedan chair, a tumbril. (4) Make a sketch or diagram 
of a Channel mail packet. (5) Make a sketch or model of the 
guillotine. (6) Make a sketch or model of the Bastille. (7) 
Make a sketch or diagram of Temple Bar. (8) Make a plan of 
the palace and grounds at Versailles. (9) Dress some small 
dolls in the costumes of the period, English or French. Pay 
particular attention to dressing the hair. (10) Make a booklet 
illustrating and explaining some of the striking events or 
graphic pen pictures in A Tale of Two Cities. 


V. A Supplementary Reading List 

(Note. The whole idea is to stimulate the student to further 
reading, and so fiction is included; special comment, sometimes, 
indicated; and, when possible, a good abridged edition of a 
biography or letters has been chosen instead of a full one.) 


LONDON 

Social England. H. D. Traill. Putnam. Vol. V. 

London in the Eighteenth Century. Walter Besant. Adam and 
Charles Black, London. 

More Wanderings in Old London , E, V, Lucas, Doubleday, 
Doran, 


386 


APPENDIX 


Queer Things about London, and More Queer Things about 
London. Charles G. Harper. Lippincott. 

Amenities of Book Collecting. A. Edward Newton. Atlantic 
Monthly Press. Chapter on “ Temple Bar Then and Now.” 
London Alleys, Byways and Courts. Allen Stapleton. Dodd, 
Mead. 

Pleasure Haunts of Old London. E. Beresford Chancellor. 
Houghton Mifflin. 

Literary Landmarks of London. Lawrence Hutton. Harper. 
Stoddard’s Lectures. John L. Stoddard. Balch. 

London: Guide to London. Ward Lock and Company, London. 


PARIS 


Paris Old and New. 2 vols. H. Sutherland Edwards. Cassell 
and Company, London, 1893. 

Stoddard’s Lectures. John L. Stoddard. Balch. 

So You’re Going to Paris. Clara Laughlin. Houghton Mifflin. 

Paris. Grant Allen’s Historical Guides. A. Wessels Company. 

Paris and Its Environs. Ward Lock and Company, London. 

Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. XIV. Editor, 
Charles Francis Horne, National Alumni, London and New 
York, 1904-1914. 

Outlines of General History. Frank Moore Colby. American 
Book Company. 

The French Revolution. Thomas Carlyle. Dutton. The fol¬ 
lowing chapters are especially interesting: 


Part I, Book V 


Book VI 


Chapter VI, Storm and Victory (tak¬ 
ing the Bastille) 

Chapter IX. The Lanterne (death of 
Foulon) 

Chapter IV. In Queue (the Paris 
breadline) 

Chapter IV. The Menads (the insur¬ 
rection of women) 

Chapter V. Usher Maillard (a Bas¬ 
tille hero versus Gen¬ 
eral Lafayette) 

Chapter VI. To Versailles (a mad pro¬ 
cession) 




Book VI 
( Continued ) 


Part III, Book I 


Book II 


Book IV 


LESSON HELPS 387 

Chapter VII. At Versailles (a mad 
siege) 

Chapter XI. From Versailles (the 
king and queen move 
to Paris) 

Chapter IV. September in Paris (ru¬ 
mors and “ wild jus¬ 
tice ”) 

Chapter V. A Trilogy (the prison 
massacres by three 
eye-witnesses — a fine 
picture is given of an 
improvised revolution¬ 
ary tribunal) 

Chapter VIII. Place de la Revolution 
(execution of Louis 
XVI) 

Chapter VII. Marie Antoinette (exe¬ 
cution of the queen) 


FICTION OF THE REVOLUTION 

The Scarlet Pimpernel. Baroness Orczy. 

The Elusive Pimpernel. Baroness Orczy. 

The Peasant and the Princess. Harriet Martineau. 

La Comtesse de Charnay. Dumas. 

Le Chevalier de Maison Rouge. Dumas. • 

Ninety-Three. Victor Hugo. 

The Girondin. Hilaire Belloc. 

Scaramouche. Raphael Sabatini. Every student should see the 
screen version of this novel. 


CHARLES DICKENS 

Life of Charles Dickens. John Forster. Abridged and revised 
by George Gissing. McClure, 

David Copperfield. Charles Dickens. Largely an autobio¬ 
graphical novel. 





388 


APPENDIX 


Dickens. A. W. Ward in “ English Men of Letters ” Series. 
Macmillan. 

A Collection of Letters of Dickens. Scribner. 

My Father As I Recall Him. Mamie Dickens. Dutton. 
Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. G. K. Chesterton. Dodd 
Mead. 

Yesterdays with Authors. James T. Fields. Also Memories of a 
Hostess: A Chronicle of Eminent Friendships from the 
Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields. M. A. DeWolfe Howe. 
Atlantic Monthly Press. These books give delightful ac¬ 
counts of Dickens’s two American visits. 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


The symbols and markings used are those of the Century 
Dictionary and Cyclopedia of Proper Names , Vol. IX, except 
that the short sound of each vowel is specifically marked. 


Key to Pronunciation 

a as in fate, ate 
8, “ “ fat, at 
a “ “ farther, car 
8 “ “ fall, talk 
a “ “ errant, republican 
a “ “ fare 

e “ “ mete, we 
8 “ “ met, bed 
e “ “ her, father 

i “ “ file, site 
I “ “ still, fill 

6 “ “ note, open 
6 “ “ not, box 
6 “ “ or, for 
6 “ “ move, spoon 

u “ “ mute, acute 

ii “ “ us, flush 

oi “ “ oil, toil 
ou “ “ proud, loud 
or “ “ nor, for 

n Fr. nasalizing n, as in ton, en 

Fr. = French 
' = accent 

" = second accent 


390 



PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


Abbaye a-ba' 

Abyssinia &b-i-sin'I-a 
Aggerawayter ag'g6r-a-wa"t6r 
Arabian a-ra'bi-an 
Ashantee a-shan'te 

Bacchanalian b&k-k&n-al'i-&n 
Barmecide bar-me-sid 
Barrier ba'rl-er 
Barsad, John bar'sad or -sad 
Bastille b&s-tel'; Fr. bas-te-yti. 
Beauvais bo-va' 

Blackheath bl&k'heth 
Briton brit'bn 

Brutus of Antiquity bru'tus of 
an-tlq'wi-ti 

Calais k&l'is; Fr. ka-la' 
Cambridge kam'bridge 
Carmagnole kar-man-nyor 
Carton, Sidney kar'tbn, sid'nl 
Chaldean k&l-de-an 
chateau sha-to' 

Cheshire Cheese chSsh'Ir chez 
Cinderella sln-der-Sl-a 
Clerkenwell kler'k6n-wel 
Cly, Roger kli, rSj'er 
Cock Lane k6k lane 
Conciergerie kon-syergh-e-re 
Concord kbng'kord 
Convulsionists kSn-vul'shun- 
Ists 

Cruncher, Jerry — Jeremiah 

krhn'cher, jSr'i, jgr'g-mi'a 

Damiens da-me-Sh' 

Darnay, Charles dar-na', 
charlz 


D’Aulnais d5-na'; Fr. do-y-na' 
Dauphin da/fin 

Defarge, Ernest d6-farzh', 

er'nSst 

Defarge, Therese dS-farzh', 

ta-rSs' 

Dover do'ver 
Dunstan dun'stan 

Evremonde 6v-ra-m5nd' 

Fleet flet 
Foulon fo-16n' 

Gabelle, Theophile gab-61', 

ta-6-fel' 

Gaspard g&s-pard' 

Gaul gal 
Gazette ga-zSt' 

Grand Opera gr&nd 6p'er-a 
Guillotine, La gil-o-ten'; Fr. la 
gi-yo-tene 

Hanging Sword Alley h&ng'ing 
sord al'i 

Harlequin har'16-kin, har-16- 
kwln 

Hebrew he-bro 

Hilary hil-a-rl 

Hotel de ville o-tSl' dti vel 

Houndsditch hounz'dlch 

Jacquerie zhak-re', zhaker-e' 
Jacques zhak 
Jeffries jSf'riz 
Jezebels jSz'6-b61s 
Jupiter jo'pi-tSr 


391 


392 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


La Force la fors 
Leonora le-'dn-o'rp, 

Loadstone Rock I5d'st5n r8k 
Lombard Street lbmb'ad stret 
Lorry, Jarvis lor'I, jar'vis 
Louis 16'is; Fr. 16'e 
Lucifer lu'si-fgr 

Madame ma-dam' or m&d'&m 
Ma’mselle mam's81 
Manette, Alexandre man-8t', 
al-8k-s5n'dr 

Manette, Lucie man-St/, lu-se' 
Marie Antoinette mar'i-an-toi- 
nSt'; Fr. ma-re'an-twa-ngt' 
Marquis mar-kwis 
Michaelmas mi'kgl-mas 
Monseigneur mon-sa-nyer' 
Monsieur me-sye' 

Newgate nu'gat 
Notre Dame no'tra dam 

Old Bailey old bal'I 
Orleans or'le-anz ; Fr. 6r'la-an 
Oxford Road bks'ford rod 

Place de la Concorde plas de 
la kon'kord" 

Pont Neuf pon' nef 
Pross, Miss pr6s, mis 
Pross, Soloman pros, sdl'o- 
mon 

Ranelagh ran'8-la 
Royal George roi'al jorj 
Rue de Rivoli rii de re-vo-le' 
Rue St. Honore rii sari-to- 
no-ra' 


Saint Antoine san-t8h-twan' 
Saint Germain Quarter sah- 
zher-maii'qwor't8r 
Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields 
sant pan'kras-in-the-fels' 
Saint Paul’s sant palz 
Sanson san'sbn 
Sardanapalus sar"da-na-pa'- 
16s 

Seine san 

Shooter’s Hill shu'terz hil 
Shrewsbury School shroz'bft-rl 
skol 

Soho Square so'ho skwar 
Southcott, Mrs. south'k6t 
Strand strand 
Stryver, C. J. strlv'Sr, c. j. 
Student-Quarter stu'dSnt- 

kwor'tgr 

Tellson’s t81's6ns 
Temple Bar tem'pl bar 
Thames t8mz 
Tribunal tri-bu'nal 
Tuileries twel'16-riz; Fr. twel're 
Tumham Green tern'am gren 
Tyburn tl'bern 

Vauxhall Gardens vaks'hal 
gar'd’n 

Vengeance, The vgn'jans 
Versailles ver-salz'; Fr. ver- 

say' 

Walton, Izaak wal'ton, i'zak 
Westminster w8st'min-st8r 
Whitefriars white'friarz 













































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